When Hel breaks loose
by H'ckaHighwater
Summary: Hercules was beginning to look forward to a guy's weekend out after receiving an invitation to a Germanic festival from the Norse gods, but he did not expect everything to go downhill so soon, and to be bamboozled by yet another Nordic Deity.
1. One Heck of a Beginning

Disclaimer: I do not own Disney characters, I do not own or represent Disney. I make no money off of this. The only think I get from it is embarrassment and exposing poor unsuspecting people to my obsession, stories and characters.

A/N: This is perhaps my first story that I have written. I've been in love with the show and movie ever since I was a kid and it really began my lifelong obsession with Myth. This story takes place a few years after the Movie, and makes heavy references to the show as well as history and other mythologies. It is very heavily influenced by the episode Twilight of The Gods, and so a lot of the scenery will take place in Germany.

Rated T for minor language and violence

* * *

Things have quieted down years later. Quite a few years later since… The incident. The incident of all incidents. Should it really be called an incident? The word Incident really seems to be downplaying what happened. What about Titan cataclysm? Would that work? No? Well anyways, time had passed since that cataclysmal event. Titans were taken care of, gods were punished, maybe redeemed, but this is not that kind of story.* This is a story of something completely different. This is a story about misunderstandings.

Just as Apollo began his journey across the sky it became routine for the no longer young Hercules to wake up at dawn break, jog a mile, and pick up the newspaper. He was always back just in time for when Meg woke up. He could not even shut the door quietly behind him before the sound of sandaled feet running towards him accompanied by a squeal of "Dad! Dad!" hit him followed by the sensation of a tiny body running into him from behind. The impact startled him more than any force his son Hyllus could throw at him.

"Woah, hey Hyllus, remember what I said about keeping it down while Mom is asleep?" He whispered and picked up the boy letting the kid drape himself over his shoulder. "Dad!" Hyllus quickly lowered his voice, "Dad, there's some bar-"

"I'm awake but it's the thought that counts." Meg spoke while leaning against the doorway holding a small krater of coffee in her hand and hair still showing signs of bed head.

He smiled weakly and sat Hyllus back down on to his feet. "Sorry." He stepped towards her leaning in to place a kiss on her but she stepped away.

"We got company." She nodded her head towards the other room with a smile.

He blinked, his blues eyes falling onto the door way and just hovering in the opening. Hercules recognized the hovering blue god before him, or at least he did. He almost mistook him for Hermes but it was the tiny beard on his chin and furs that gave it away. Hercules squinted at the familiar and near identical messenger. "Herm-?"

"Hermod."** The northern messenger finished, "Remember me? Of course you do! It's been a while!"

"Oh right! Hermod! From the Norse Pantheon! I remember now." Hercules slapped the side of his head. It had been more than a decade since he had put an end to the Ragnarok prophecy let alone the blue messenger god that looked nearly identical to Hermes. "What brings you here? Is everything okay? Should we get you anything?"

"No, no but thank you. I was just stopping by to deliver this invitation to Oktoberfest. Odin extended an invitation to Zeus and Hera this year and they suggested that maybe you and the family would enjoy the festivities. Odin also sends his belated congratulations on achieving your divinity-" He adjusted his glasses as Herc scratched the back of his head sheepishly, "Although, it seems you are currently without it. Not a problem since the festivities will be held on Midgard in Munich.*** Not bad this time of year, and I hear it's really growing a marvelous art community. You really-"

"Thank you. Thank you for the invite." Meg cut off. Something did not feel right, not that she didn't trust the machinations of all powerful deities, well actually, she didn't trust the hidden machinations of all powerful deities. "And we really appreciate it but, you know Hyllos, here is about to start school soon, and-"

Herc gave her a confused look. Hyllus' school didn't start for a couple of weeks, and he couldn't see anything wrong with the very promising idea of a small vacation, and festival. "I thought school wasn't for another couple of weeks.."

"Yeah mom! It's not yet! I can go too!" Hyllus spoke up.

Meg bent down to grab his hand and pull him aside. "Oh kay, You remember what I said about conveniently jumping into the middle of adult conversation and how you really shouldn't do that? Also you need to pick up your room, I don't think you made your bed yet and I can tell you didn't brush your teeth." She looked up as Hyllus pulled away with a pout and trounced off to his room. Her worried purple eyes meeting her husband's. It was then he knew something was wrong, so he turned to Hermod.

"I, just got to speak with the missus, I'll be right back with an answer."

Hermond nodded to him, letting the demi-god break disappear into the kitchen.

"Okay, what is wrong? I can stay here if you like, but I really don't see anything wrong Meg. They're good people."

Meg sighed, looking up at him. Something felt off, like things could go wrong. "I know, I know. It's just that, you know, whenever you get called for these kinds of things, trouble rears it ugly head and you run off rushing to adventure."

"Meg, I'm a Hero."

"I know, and I don't have a problem with that, it's just that we have a kid now."

His shoulders dropped as he realized the weight of keeping not just her safe but their son as well. "Okay. You're right." He sighed and turned to let the blue God know, "I'll let him know, we got too much to take care of at the moment."

Meg frowned, seeing that perhaps Herc missed out on adventuring, and maybe she was being just a little paranoid. Before he could leave the room, she spoke up.

"You know, I don't really have a problem with you going."

He stopped, looking to her smiling face. "why don't you invite a friend, or the old goat. I can take Hyllos shopping, and maybe even make it a day to spend at your parent's house kind of thing."

'Are you sure?" He asked, a smile returning to his face, knowing that despite how she felt, she was willing to put forth an effort to make him happy. "I mean, you don't have to do this, I-"

She punched him playfully in the shoulder. "Go on, Wonderboy, go have your fun. Invite a couple of friends or even the old goat. Make it a guy's night if you want to."

"Are you sure?"

"Go! Go have fun you dork." She said pushing her husband towards the door.

Herc snorted through his nose, "Dork? Okay, I'll let Hermod know." Before he headed back into the living room, he turned back to her. "I love you."

* * *

Prior to the festival, Hercules could think of no one else to invite other than his long time friend Icarus, and Philitetes, although it took a little convincing for the old goat. He was not too keen on the snowy place, or the possibility of being stuck rhyming again but the promise of seeing the valkeries and a festival of drinking and eating was not to be passed up. It had been years since he had been to Germany, and this time it wasn't completely that cold. Snow had barely fallen. By barely fallen, that means there was about a foot of snow. So not bad at all!

When the three of them got off of Pegasus, they stood in the middle of town in awe. Well Not entirely awe, for you see, the town of Munich was possibly one of the largest Barbarian towns he had ever seen. Meaning that instead of about nine huts, there were possibly double that. As for a thriving art scene, it was a few stalls selling Kuckoo clocks, carvings of bears, and some musicians blowing away on horns.

Phil slapped his forehead and yelled, "It's just a dump again!"

"WOAH! They got the old world old school charm!" Icarus yells, clasping his head. "You probably haven't heard about it." He changes his voice and flicks his scarf around his neck, now donning a new persona, "It's really obscure."

"Oh, I didn't realize being out of date and rundown was obscure!" Phil yelled back, face reddening. His hand flourishes and lands on his chest, "Oh pardon me!"

"Well, I guess it's not so bad, it kind of have its charm." Herc says trying to calm his satyr mentor, but he was partially distracted as he dug through his satchel, pulling out a scroll. He would not have to work too hard to distract the old goat because a dozen damsels wearing dirndls daintily dawdled down towards the center square.

"Yeah, I see it now. This town really does have its charm." Phil rubbed his hands together while his tongue hung out. "Don't wait up for me boys! I'll join you later!" And in an instant, he was off trotting after the ladies.

"Wait! Phil!" Icarus yelled, waving his hands frantically but not giving chase, "You forgot your invite!"

Herc looks down to the scroll in his hands and compares it to the sun. "Well we have some time to wander around before joining my parents later on. We'll bump into him again. In the meantime, let's take a look around." And so the two of them wandered around the festivities, helping themselves to drinks, music and the sights. One of the sights led them towards a street filled with markets.

"Oh Herc! We need to stop there! I promised Dadalus that I'd bring back a souvenir!"

Icarus ran off excitedly down the street, which would not have been much of a problem for Herc to run after him except he felt a smaller hand on his shoulder .

"There you are! Herc babe I've been looking everywhere for you!"

The demigod whirled around expecting Hermod but instead found Hermes.

"Oh! Hermes! Sorry we were searching for where to meet you guys later, we just got a bit distracted."

Herc turned his head back to look for his friend but had managed to lose his friend already.

"Oh that's fine babe, the shindig isn't until later on tonight and you got time, if you got time, I got someone that would like to speak with you. It shouldn't take long."

Herc raised his eyebrows and looked over his shoulder again. He was sure Icarus was a grown man and quite frankly this town wasn't really all that big, he figured he could easily find him again. "Oh of course. I don't see right-"

One minute he was in the market place and the next he was by a cordoned off area standing before a large armored god standing between them and the stanchion that lead to the section reserved for the divine.

"We're just checking in to speak with Tyr and Balder, Heimdall.*" Hermes assured the all-seeing God.

Heimdall looked down to his list to mark them off, but in the meantime, Hercules' eyes spotted two younger deities, that looked not much older than thirteen. One was bright white with golden hair carrying a large sword while the other standing opposed to him had much darker tones of purple and black hair. He couldn't hear what was being said but it was enough to make the purple one storm off into a wall of shadows. Hercules frowned. Something felt worrying, and something about the exchange seemed way too familiar. The younger white god turned around to approach a much older one with one arm sitting at a table.

"Herc! C'mon let's go!"

He followed after the blue messenger towards a long table set up next to an open space with archery targets, weapons and shields lined the outside of it. The two gods looked up to them, the younger white one even waved with a week smile.

"Tyr, god of Wars and Balder young god of Heroes and light, I bring you Hero of Greece and son of Zeus, Hercules." Hermes winced as he heard something, someone with a long beard and penchant for zapping people with thunder bolts was calling him not too far away. "Oh! I'll be right back, I got to take this one!" And the blue god was gone before the three other males could blink.

Tyr stood up and held his hand out to shake Hercules' hand, "Pleased to formerly meet you. Thank you for meeting with us. Shame we hadn't met sooner. I would have loved to challenge you after you defeated Thor. " Tyr motioned to the younger white god, "Had to be training Balder here." He slapped a hand on Balder's shoulder, causing the teen to jolt forward a bit.

Hercules shook Tyr's hand, feeling a bit taken by this war god's courteous yet boisterous attitude. It was a real throw from the war gods at home, between the over sized god-child and the sister that goaded him on, Tyr's welcoming attitude came as a relief."Um, Thanks I guess, but honestly, it's rather embarrassing..." Try as he might, he could not repress the memories of literally trusting and being deceived by a trickster god that literally introduced himself as a trickster god.

"Eh, don't beat yourself up over it. Loki has pulled a fast one on everyone on Asgard." Tyr's voice lowered as glanced sideways, "It was only a matter of time before he moved on to some new victims anyways." Tyr straightened up, picking his cheeriness back up. "Well, he's locked away in Nifleheim,* being tortured forever now, so no need to worry about that now!"

Hercules laughed nervously and looking down to Balder who had his arms crossed and looked off to the side. The young god looked up at the demigod for a second, and the guilty was quickly replaced by a cheerful smile. Hercules instantly recognized that of a guilty child attempting to hide something. He wasn't here to bust the kid's chops though.

"Training huh?" Herc asked. "What kind of training? Is it for being the God of heroes?" It was a bit strange to him that a young god that had to be trained was already being declared a god of heroes.

Balder looked down to the side and smiled a bit, "Something like that."

Tyr rested his heavy stump of an arm on Balder's head, "About that! I understand you have since retired from the Hero-ing business, but Balder here, has been prophesied to be our god of heroes but he's been having a bit of problem-" And now all the charm that Tyr previously had began to wither away as he leaned into Herc, "He's got a bit of a flinching problem.. Even tries talking to his foes."

Balder's cheeks brightened into a warm glow as he pouted.

"Well, what's wrong with that?"

That question made Tyr stop and blink as his brain tried to determine whether Herc was joking or not. Balder peeked upwards at the demigod, the glow in his cheeks fading.

The awkward silence was broken up by the ground giving a small shake beneath their feet.

* * *

*I am of course referring to one of the many, many fictions of Hades and Persephone. In this fiction, Angel of Hunky-doryness has given me permission to use her characters and her world. If things are off, just consider it an AU that is a couple degrees to the upper left.

Hermod returns! He is known as Hemod the swift and later Hermod the brave for being brave enough to actually journey down to the underworld just for a favor.

Midgard was what the Norse referred to the land of human, and technically Oktober Fest didn't start all the way till the 1800s, but hey, Disney is already a mess of anachronisms anyways. Also the vikings appear to have had some form of harvest festival close to September that seems to also coincide with modern day Oktoberfest.

Tyr- One handed god of war, and justice.

Balder- God of light, mercy, peace, and beauty. It is impossible to hate him.

Heimdall- Basically the bouncer of the gods.

Nifleheim- sometimes said to be land of the dead, but at other times it is said to be on the surface and actually land of ice and mists. In the show, Nifleheim seems to have been on the surface.


	2. Paved with Bad Intentions

Quite some time before the earth began to shake…

Phil was still not that popular with the ladies. Why he thought things would be different in Germany, he didn't know why. Apparently half animal-human beings were not that widespread this far north and the humans fell into two categories: the disgusted ones and the very curious ones. Not many young and pretty women fell into the latter category. The closest he came, was with an old witch hawking wooden bear carvings but that was only because she thought he was part bear.

The old goat did manage to find the one tavern where he could get a drink and hear some local boasts. One thing the Nordic barbarians knew how to do was to have a jolly good time. Although the music was loud, it was not enough to completely eclipse the conversation that was taking place further down the bar.

At the other end of the bar was a rather short girl whose dark hair was tied into two large buns and wore a furry stole that just barely covered the revealing cut in her drindle. She had a cute round face that was full of strained smiles with sparkling eyes that darted towards all of the exits. She had reason to smile so nervously for she had large barbarian men on either side of her trying to garner her attention.

"Honey, what were you doing in that well?" Said a large bearded man who was certain his overly sweet nicknames were the way to a woman's heart.

'Well I've always been a bit of a clumsy kid. I'm just soooo glad that you were there to help me." The young woman cooed and twirled a loose hair.

One of the men, covered in fur both animal and his own leaned in and murmured, "You know if you need anyone's arms to fall into, you always have mine." Another, although shorter man, who very well could be part bear winked at her.

The woman whose name happened to be Ganglat crinkled her nose and tried to suppress a gag at the corny line and counted down until life threw in some kind of distraction. Even Phil thought that line was bad, and he was king of cheap pick-up lines.

The short woman jumped down from the stool and announced, "You guys are really sweet! But I must be off! I have a festival to enjoy!"

"No wait! I got to tell you about the time we snuck into Fafnir's den and-"

"Like I said… I really need to not be in here, and I should be out there, but thank you for the- "She was cut off as her wrist was grabbed not too tightly to cause her to protest.

Phil knew this was just another classic D.I.D., and if he played things just right, he might just have a plan to get those men to leave her alone… So he can mercilessly hit on her. He stepped outside before he could even be noticed, waited a couple of seconds and then kicked the door in. "ALE BRAWL IN THE CENTER OF TOWN!" He yelled at the top of his lungs. The sentence made absolutely no sense. The context even less. But he knew that all he needed were for the tiny lizard brains in those thick skulls to grasp at just a few key words in order to get into gear.

You could hear a pin drop in the tavern as all eyes fell upon the little goat man. For a second Phil wondered if maybe he jumped the crossbow on this one, but the sudden clamber of bodies from the bar towards the door was the best answer he was going to get. The old Satyr tried to swim to the top of the crowd but he was not the young kid for quite a very long time.

Meanwhile Ganglat… Poor sweet Ganglat… Was dragged into the mob until she was able to wrench her wrist free. She bounced around in the stampede for a few seconds before attempting to swim to the top of the crowd as well. She bounced around at top like some party beach ball, before she was finally tossed onto the floor behind the counter as the crowd thinned out. The fall was enough to break her shift, revealing not a short and attractive woman, but a short and semi attractive Mare.

After the mob abandoned the tavern, Phil was no longer left with a sea of people to surf on and well, he was left to wipe out.

Ganglat in her true form is what some may call a Mare*. The very being that gives us the base word for Nightmare today. The lilac skinned Mare rubbed her hind quarters that extended out into short yet delicate horse like hooves, the appearance of which made her gasp. She even had a long fluffy horse like tail, but the rest of her was fairly human like despite being covered in light fur and sporting a singular stubby horn on her forehead. If it wasn't for her tiny pointed teeth, bat-like wings and cat like pupils, she would almost be something imagined by a five year old girl. She tugged at her horse like ears and groaned in frustration. Why do humans have to be so infuriating? The clopping of hooves turning around the corner of the bar alerted Ganglat that someone or something was coming. In an instant she transformed back into her human like form just in time for Phil to step around the corner.

"Well that's one way to clear the room…" Phil reaching for a couple of wooden wine cups and polishing them with a cloth. He smiled at the short woman, "But now that we're alone..."

Before he could even get into relentlessly hitting on her, the Mare-in-Disguise got up to her feet and smiled awkwardly at the goatman. It was the kind of smile a woman gives a man that has decided to help her with a small task that she didn't even ask for, insisted upon it and has ulterior motives for offering. "Gee thanks… I was thinking I needed a few more bruises and footprints on my skirt but I wasn't entirely sure how I would get that accomplished today…" Gangalt stood up and pushed by Phil making him drop the cups.

"Hey! I was just only trying to help, I thought you wanted to get away from those guys!" He protested while following after her.

"I did!" Ganglat turned and huffed, "I just didn't want to be trampled on, or stepped on, or followed by some ... Some… Just what the Hel are you anyways?"

Phil growled, feeling his forehead heat up from anger. "I'm a Satyr, Haven't you people ever heard of a Satyr?"

"Nope. Is that like a Finnish thing?" Ganglat shrugged her shoulders.

Phil slapped his forehead, "It's Greek!"

The woman stared at him for a few uncomfortable minutes. Ganglat seriously had not even heard of that land before. "Is that like very far away?" Ganglat had few opportunities to explore outside of the Nordic lands, and had been tied to her work. However, she knew this Satyr thing could be of some valuable information. A couple of gears began to turn in her head.

The old Satyr would have gotten annoyed but her confused state just made her all that more innocent and less intimidating. "Why yes!" He hopped towards her, balancing on one hoof. "It's a land far to the south, with beaches! And exotics!"

Before Ganglat could even escape, he had her swept back into his arm, 'Land of wine, honey, poetry… Amore..."

Ganglat's eyebrows furrowed all the while her smile strained to stay in place. It struggled to stay there. It was truly an Olympian feat. "Oh. I see, that sounds… Interesting…" She inhaled deeply trying to compose herself. _I am a manipulative and beautiful Mare, I'm a beautiful and manipulative Mare. This guy is a chump._ After she exhaled and opened her eyes, her smile and the twinkle in her eyes were the kind that could win awards.

"Oh that sounds wonderful… I just… I need to run a few errands, but why don't you tell me more about it!'

Phil brushed his greying hair back and bowed to the short woman, "Lead the way."

* * *

On the other side of town, Icarus had not even noticed the sudden absence of his best friend. He was far too busy stockpiling up on as many trinkets and festival gear, from horribly inaccurate horned helmets to footwear that for some reason as being used as drinking vessels. "I see, it's to get that proper fermented taste..." He mused while peeking one eye down into the boot. The shop keeper, nodded with a wide grin while shuffling his entire broken stock of clay vessels out of site.

"But will it be good enough for Dadalus?" Icarus held the boot away from his face and squinted his eyes at it. It didn't even take a split second before shoving it under a free arm, "Aw who am I kidding!? I'll take it!"

Now that he was satisfied with his socially required purchase he handed the boot to the space where Herc should have been. "Hey Herc, do you mind carrying this for me?" He wiggled the boot midair, expecting it to be taken. And waited. And waited some more. "Well if you don't want to just say so!"

Icarus whirled around to the empty spot. "Oh! You won't carry it 'cause you're not here!" His smile immediately turned into a frown as it dawned on him that he was in the middle of a foreign country during a festival completely alone. Normally a person in that position may react in the following order 1) looking around and yelling for a lost comrade 2) getting a little panicky but not succumbing to it too soon, 3) approach someone and try to petition someone for help, 4) find the nearest authority figure to help locate their party.

Why would you expect Icarus to do any of these things that made sense?

The meltdown was the first and most obvious choice to make. Followed by calling out for the names of his friends, then more screaming, then of course attempting to climb to the highest location that he could find and locate them that way. You know, as you do. When that didn't work, he tried running all over town calling out his friends names. When he got no response, he did the next logical thing. Breaking down in despair and crying.

"Oh now what is this?" The grown man heard an older, grandfatherly voice say.

"I- I Lost my friends and I can't find them anywhere!" Icarus sniffed pathetically and answered the very short and stubby legged, stubby armed beard. Yes, a Beard. It was like this short man was all beard stuffed into layers of leather, armor and had two arms and two legs stuck on as an afterthought.

"Aw there, there, I'll help you find them. What's your name little man?" The beard asked him all the while looking up.

"Icarus." He replied, "My friends are named Hercules and Philitetes but he goes by Phil."

"Well it's nice to meet you, I'm Ivaldi. Just hold my hand and I'll take you to my cart and we can wait there while we have your friends paged. How does that sound?"

"Mmmhmm." Icarus nodded, and took the dwarf's hand as he was led away to Ivaldi's cart.

The cart was a huge assemblage of wood but mostly metal, but one hundred percent moving parts. Icarus had seen many inventions in his life and even helped out with them, and this sort of thing was only surprising in how..."Oh Hey! This looks like some of the things my Dad makes!" The eternal child in a man's body yelled.

"Oh is that so?" Ivaldi laughed running a hand through his gray beard, "I don't think I ever heard of humans making steam machines."

"Oh yeah, we've made a solar powered one too."

"Solar powered?" Ivaldi blinked his teensy black eyes from the area where his eyes should be. It's hard to tell when a dwarf's beard blends into his eyebrows. He never even though of using the sun as energy source before. Ivaldi pulled on a lever that stuck out of his cart causing it to slowly and somewhat smoothly transition from a small humble yet very weird steam powered cart to a larger booth with chairs to sit on and cupboards that opened up to reveal… Cuckoo clocks.

"That's pretty interesting actually… Although where I'm from, we don't have much sun." Ivaldi climbed up onto his seat and reached into his pocket and pulled out some hard candies to offer to Icarus.

Icarus took a piece and sat down in a seat. "Oh is that cause of winter? Don't worry, you always got summer."

"Something like that." Ivaldi said as he cleared a pulled down a long series of pipes that lead to the top of his cart and ended in a funnel shape. Perfect for making announcements. "You really aren't familiar with dwarves are you? Do they not have any where you're from?"

Icarus shoved the candy into his mouth and waved the old dwarf off, "Oh, they prefer to be called little people..."

"No not smaller humans, dwarves." Ivaldi chuckled, "You know, us short human like beings, long beards, thick accents and live underground? No? Bah! Don't worry about it. Now what were your friend's names?"

Icarus stared at him in confusion, but it only lasted a second, "Woah you live underground? Doesn't that get a bit dangerous? They're named Phil, short for Philitetes and Herc, short for Hercules."

The old dwarf shook his head "Not that dangerous... Well It is, but it's gotten a lot better from when I was a wee Lad." Ivaldi shrugged and cleared his voice to announce through the pipe, "Philitetes and Hercules we have a very special buddy who is waiting for you. Please meet your party at the Steam Wagon. Please meet your party at the steam wagon."

He put the phone down and swiveled his seat towards Icarus. "We'll wait a bit and do another announcement. In the meantime, I got business to do." Ivaldi pulled out a large heavy trunk from under his desk sat it on his workspace with a loud thud. Icarus leaned over Ivaldi's shoulder and watched obnoxiously close as the dwarf pulled out tiny tweezers, gears and metal. There was already a partially put together thinga-ma-jig. "So, uh, what's ya working on?" Icarus asked while breathing down Ivaldi's hairy neck.

"I call it a clock. It's like a sundial that doesn't use solar power. This old one has just stopped working so I need to take it apart and see what's wrong. I suspect it might be something to do with the wind up function. I really do need to figure some other way to power it."

The clock was a very intricate although tiny thing about the size of a small jewelry box. The hands on the golden clock were motionless but would have circled around a center dial and at each number were smaller spheres each depicting different scenes.

"Oh right, because of the whole underground thing." Icarus reached for the tools beside Ivaldi, one of which being a little magnifying glass that he held in his eye.

Ivaldi smirked, noticing the curiosity in his eyes, "This clock depicts the nine worlds…" He pointed to a sphere with a pair of tweezers depicting humans tending to a farm, "We are here in Midgard. And here," He pointed to another sphere depicting two stalagmites standing parallel to each other, towards the bottom, "is where I live. Nidvallir or also called Svaltalfheim if you're an elf."

"What are those other ones?" Icarus asked now fiddling with a few gears himself, putting things into place.

"The one in fire is Muspelheim, home of the fire giants, this one is Nifleheim, it was home of the frost giants, here is Asgard, realm of the gods… Hey! You're pretty good at that! Look at you, just picking up on it so quick, I could have you help me with this."

"Ooh! That's probably where Herc is!" Icarus nearly knocked all of Ivaldi's things over as he pointed towards the small Asgard sphere.

"What!? I am so sorry! I thought we were looking for living friends!"

"No, no, Herc's alive, he just got an invite by Odin..."

Ivaldi cupped a hand to his forehead and ran it through his white hair in disbelief. "And you're worried about the underground being dangerous."

"What?"

Before Ivaldi could clarify himself he was interrupted by none other than Phil who was walking with his arm around a very uncomfortable looking short woman as he made his way towards the cart.

"Geez! I can't go anywhere with you guys! Hey, where's Herc?"

Ivaldi blinked at Phil, took off his glasses, polished them and placed them back on. It wasn't the strangest creature he has seen, but it was pretty up there. "Are you Phil and Herc?"

What? No! I mean, I am Phil and this..." He took Ganglat's hand and kissed it. She attempted to not make a face,

"Astrid." She said, her eyes landing on Ivaldi and then widening. _What was he doing here? He was not supposed to be here!_

"Oh, well, nice to meet you. My name is Ivaldi and it seems like I found this lost little guy..." Ivaldi turned to Icarus who was supposed to be sitting next to him but was now throwing himself over both Phil and Ganglat.

"I was sooooo loooost! I was scared and I looked everywhere!" Icarus bawled. Phil attempted to push Icarus off but his grip was ironclad. "Enough already! You're getting my fur all wet!"

As he struggled to pry the human off of him, Ganglat was standing there with her jaw agape.

"Is something wrong miss?" Ivaldi asked.

"What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here."

"Well that's a bit uncalled for. I may be a dwarf, but I have every right to be here and sell my wares. I even have my pass to do so right here..." Ivaldi began to rummage through pockets for the amulet that gave him passage. Ganglat slammed, well tried to slam her hands on the desk but she had to climb up the chair and slam her hands onto the desk.

"Ivaldi! What are you doing here? You can't be here because things are going down here. We can't have things go down if you're in the way."

Ivaldi squinted at Ganglat behind his glasses, "Do I know you?"

From behind them, she could here Phil still struggle to get Icarus off of him, "Have you tried checking by the MVG area? He's probably meeting his parents there with the rest of the gods."

The color drained from Ganglat's face. "Gods?" She asked turning towards Phil. "There are _Gods_ here?"

"What do you mean things are going down?" Ivaldi asked but Ganglat was in no place to answer.

"Ivaldi, just do everyone a favor and get out of here! Far away!" She yelled scrambling past Phil and Icarus, "I need to find Ganglati!"

"Hey where are you going? I thought we had dinner plans!" Phil yelled at her as he tried to wrench himself free of the sniffling Icarus.

Ivaldi stood there in disbelief, as he watched Ganglat run off. "Ganglati?" He knew that name and the other names attached to it, "Ganglat!?"

"Well she's off in a hurry... I got to say Phil, that has to be a new record for a girl to stick around before running off." Icarus noted, finally releasing the Satyr. He looked back to his new old friend who was hurriedly packing up his steam cart with a speed he had never seen in an old person. "Packing up already? We were just getting to the good part! At least stay for Oktoberfest dance!"

"We need to find your friend and leave, that was Ganglat!"

"Ganglat? I thought her name was Astrid." Phil asked.

"That's Ganglat, and if Ganglat and Ganglati are both here than trouble isn't too far behind."

Then the ground began to finally shake.

* * *

Actually, scratch that, let's rewind a bit and shift the focus elsewhere...

Still some time before the ground shook, because we still need to establish some things before we cut to the action, far down, deep below the center of town, in a very large, very damp cave system, angry voices echoed against the cavern walls instead of the sound of pickaxes. Three groups were gathered around a large hunk of machinery and arguing amongst each other.

"I don't trust this one bit! It looks like it's going to collapse and blow up!" A feminine sounding figure dressed in silken robes and a wooden carved mask gestured to the large machinery in the middle of the large cavern. The machine could be best described as a large upward facing drill that had three smaller ones ready to spin around it like some terrifying amusement state fair ride, with all of the stability and legitimate safety of a state fair ride.

"Or blow up and collapse," chimed in a similarly dressed figure right behind her.

"Or that!"

"Oh, Shush you mushroom eatin' pansies!" The gruffer, Scottish accented and stereotypical dwarf known as Pyrite fought back. It is a known fact that all dwarves had large beards, Scottish accents and a love for ale. Yes, Even the She-dwarves. Especially the She-dwarves. "It's practic'ly in mint condition!" He said as he punched the side of one of the smaller drills causing a board holding one of the side plates to loosen and slide off. "That's jus' a cosmetic feature."

"We are abandoning this mission." The masked dark elf said disdainfully.

"You gonna tell the boss that Runatntha!? Cause I'm sure Boss would just be thrilled about hearing that from you after you made the prediction that this would be the most profitable hit we'll have this year? Go on ahead!"

"I'm sure you would want that, wouldn't you! Just to have the biggest hit be ruined and collapsing and blaming it on us!" The dark elf had heard the rumors. Centuries of rivalry between them and the dwarves ensured that they were always trying to undermine the other faction to ensure their position in Svaltalfheim.

"Well…" A grave voice spoke up after very patiently waiting. "We could wait for the boss and see what she wants." The large undead man spoke very slowly, causing the other participants in the argument to tap their feet and look at their watches as they waited for him to finish.

"Boss said to start up the machine! And we're starting up the machine!" A screw fell from a strut and bounced off of his helmet. The other dwarf next to him bent down and handed the screw back to his brother. "It's fine. Jus' cosmetic."

"And we are not starting that machine!"

"We should just wait-"

"I do fine work!"

"ENOUGH!" echoed throughout the caverns and was followed by a drastic drop in temperature.

The whole cave system fell quiet as everyone watched their breaths fog up before them and they slowly turned their eyes to the much taller figure advancing on them. Returning from the narrow crevice that led to well water and sending her two minions to the surface. As tall as she was, she was still very young: a thirteen-year-old kid dressed in a tattered hooded tunic, and trousers tucked into boots. Much of her clothes were held in place using bone and found objects. Every bit of skin was wrapped in bandages and her face was covered by a wooden death mask. Only her red eyes could be seen from behind her mask.

Even though she was very young, she knew how to intimidate a crowd. It was easy when you're a lot bigger and stronger than almost everyone else; but being a ball of adolescent rage also helps. She glared at the quarreling parties, "First rule!" She demanded.

"Cut it out." The entire group groaned in unison.

"Now second rule." She held out two fingers.

"What you says goes."

"And I say, we're gonna wait 'till dumb and dumber get back and clear things up, and then we can start the drill. What's the Ymir-dammed problem!?'

"Boss, If I might..." The elf spoke meekly, "We are concerned about the state of the drill, and we would not wish for it to fail on us… It doesn't look to be in the best shape. Look, two more pieces just fell off of it right now!" She pointed to the fallen pieces of the machine.

"I told ya! It's jes cosmetic! Just for looks. It will be fine." Pyrite spoke up defensively.

The masked figure could only rest her hand on the brow of the smiling mask and groaned. Always with the bickering over one thing or another. Just one day, if she could go without having to settle their petty squabbles, she could live that one day happy in this miserable frozen hole. At least the dead weren't as annoying, slow, painfully slow but not nearly as annoying.

"Ugh, just shut up the two of you! Here's what we're gonna do, to shut you both up! Pyrite, you're gonna run a maintenance check, and you're gonna be the one to turn it on and stay there."

"What?" Pyrite gasped eyes widening as it suddenly dawned on him, that he may not be entirely sure that those minor cosmetic issues are entirely minor. 'I- I- I"

"Unless you doubt your craftsmanship…"

The elves behind her Hooted with laughter.

"But I am sure you wouldn't be that dumb to create something that would just fall apart right on top of you."

The masked figure was blunt and cold, so her words cut right to the point and right into his pride. Pyrite grew red faced and marched his way towards the center machine that held a few levers and pulleys.

"There's no point in this, because I know it's perfectly safe, but if it makes you and the gutless elves happy then so be it." He grumbled.

The taller masked figure turned to the rest of the working crew, "And while he does that, you get back to work! We ain't gonna be standing around with our fingers up our noses until Ganglat and Ganglati get back! So, pick up an axe and start chippin' away at the foundations." She said while pointing towards the horde of Draugar and turned to the elves, "And you, make sure the escape tunnels are clear, I want this to be a clean grab and dash."

In the time span it took her to give orders and collect a pick axe herself, she heard the distinct sounds of the machine kicking into gear and turning on. She turned her head as the earth around her began to shake.

"Well… Shite"

* * *

*Mare, also known as an Alp, is primarily Germanic in lore. It is the origin of our term Nightmare, and was a being that was sometimes considered to be faun like or horse like in appearance, or sometimes even hag like. I've combined different mythologies to create Ganglat's appearance since Germanic, and Nordic folklore like most folklore is often varied even within the same culture. Tales and myths of Germanic and Norse mythology was not fully written about until hundreds of years later after Christianization and so I took this as an opportunity to take some fictional license with some of the lore.

 **Xitan22:** Thank you, that means a lot to me. Do you mean too bad it wasn't Hyllos to come to the Oktoberfest? Well it didn't make much sense for a kid to be taken out to a guy's night out, but he will be making more appearances again.

 **A/N:** I'm still debating whether to actually include Hades in this… Not sure how it gets worked out and I see there are so many Hades and Persephone stories in here that are just so good, that I almost want to make it so that anyone can insert their own favorite versions and have it co-exist with this story. Is that too silly? Cause I'm thinking that is a little too silly.

Fafnir- legendary dragon that the legendary hero Siegfried fights. Basically the inspiration for Tolkien's Smaug.

Ivaldi is a minor character that is mentioned in some of the prose, mostly in reference to the building of the god's most valued items such as Thor's Mjolnir. Ivaldi is said to have many children, and sometimes he is said to be the father of Idunn. Here, I made him a well loved grandfather dwarf figure that is much beloved in the underrealm.

Speaking of which, in norse myth there is doesn't seem to actually be any distinction between dark elves and dwarves. In fact in some ways it is almost used interchangeably. Hence why in this fiction, Svaltalfheim and Nidavellir are two different names for the same city used by the different races that live there.


	3. What in the?

Well now that we got the world shaking and quaking established... The scene pans back onto Herc, Balder, and Tyr who held onto nearby posts as the world shook underneath them. Swords and shields as well as drinking vessels clattered off the tables. The world shook for what seemed like forever until forever ended rather abruptly. The three held their breath and looked to each other for answers.

"What was that?" Herc asked, although familiar with earthquakes but in Greece, earthquakes were a common thing. Especially when earthquakes are attributed to maybe about three different deities and occasionally monster trapped under mountains.

Tyr regained his footing and grabbed his sheathed sword. His attention was directed towards the ground as he yelled, "Not today, spawn of Loki! Not today!" He pointed to Balder and ordered, "I need you to stay here and focus on getting the mortals out of here and safe! I'm going to alert Odin to what is happening and round up some Valkyries." The war god then focused on Hercules, "Well, I'm sorry to be asking for your assistance on your day off-"

"Don't even worry about it. I mean I pretty much built a career and lifestyle out of helping those in need." Herc shrugged and glanced to Balder whose eyes were lowered to the ground staring at it with intense thought.

"Alright then, we'll team up when I get back" Tyr said bringing Herc's attention back to him before vanishing in a flash of red light with a sharp sound of swords clashing.

Herc turned to grab a sword and shield, but something was missing. Moreover, someone was missing. That someone being a young teenage god who was very rapidly running towards the center of town and not doing anything he was ordered to do. "Balder? Wait! Tyr said you had to-" He cut himself off thinking maybe Balder was heading to the town to direct people away from danger. He reached for the shield yet again which… He wasn't sure how he managed to miss it, but the shield was missing too! The demigod slapped his faced and groaned, "Of course… It makes sense…"

Hercules took off after the young god before the kid could do anything stupid.

Balder could hear Herc's voice ringing in the back of his mind as he ran around the corners of town, narrowly trampling a few mortals. "Sorry! Sorry! Please watch out! Oh right! Get away from the center of town, by orders of Tyr!" Oh why did she have to choose today and here of all places? Did she have a death wish!? Did she even know about the festival? His thoughts were only pierced occasionally by someone shouting his name and something else at him.

The pale white god whipped his head around to see Hercules barreling after him. Apparently having super strength did not mean that he skipped leg day. _Ah Kvas._ He thought to himself.

"Balder! Trying to prove yourself won't help things! Hero rule number fifty-three!" Hercules shouted.

"What!? What are you talking aboooooou-" He crashed hard into something that honestly did not even lay even a scratch on him. Instead the wreckage surrounded him in a neat little circle. The poor victims, a cart full of clock work, followed by a satyr, a human, and a dwarf however were scattered all over the place and were not as lucky. Balder scrambled to pick himself off from the ground. "Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry! I- I'll help out with that, after you evacuate and-" His blue eyes settled on Ivaldi. By that moment Hercules skidded to a stop close behind him. "Okay, kid. You have a lot of explaining to do-"

"Herc buddy! I found you! I thought I was lost forever!" Icarus cut him off and threw himself over his best friend.

"Icarus, now's not the time to-" He was used to trying to quell his old high school friend down, but seriously there was a time and place. Timing and correct placement was never a concept Icarus could quite grasp.

Phil on the other hand was busy cracking his back and yelled at the young god, "Hey! What's the big idea? We're trying to evacuate here!" Only to not get an answer from the teenage god at all.

"Oh, hey Phil, this is Balder, um, I think he's kind of a god of heroes in training."

"What are you doing here?" Balder demanded of Ivaldi whose face turned from confusion to down right insulted.

"I have every right to be here Balder, You know that's something I never expected out of you of all gods-"

"No, I mean this wouldn't happen if you were here! No wait! I mean gosh darn it," Balder dropped the dwarf and cupped his hands over his face wishing that he could insert both of his feet into his mouth. He groaned in distress and felt firm hand on his shoulder.

"Are you going to tell me what is going on?" Herc asked in a more stern tone.

Balder peeked out from his eyes and groaned. Hercules seemed like a nice guy, and maybe he would understand, but he had to really be sure. "I…" He began only for the world to begin shaking yet again.

"There it goes again!" Phil yelled. "We need to get out of here pronto!"

"But my wares!" Ivaldi protested trying to get his things in order as quickly as he could with the help of Icarus who was picking up the now smashed clock that Ivaldi was working on earlier.

"We don't have time for that! We need to get out of here!"

"Don't worry, Tyr will be back with some back up." Herc explained to the others.

"No!" Balder yelled loud enough to get all of their attention.

Herc stared at Balder, finally assessing that something was very wrong with Balder. The kid was distressed about something. "What? Talk to me! What is wrong, I'll help you if you just tell me! Please just talk to me!"

Despite the dramatic shaking of the earth Balder managed to maintain his eye contact with the demigod. "Okay. But I can't tell you here, just trust me on this! If you help me, we might be able to prevent this from happening. I know it sounds crazy, but if I could just talk-" Herc held his hand out to Balder to pick him back up.

"I will, but you just need to be honest with me."

Balder took his hand, a smile formed on his face. Maybe he could trust him.

* * *

Meanwhile at the end of the rainbow bridge that was extended from Asgard to the earth, Zeus and Hera were growing more impatient with another god that was standing in their way and questioning their authority. Not even Hermes who was called to verify their being there was perfectly fine.

Ganglati, not to be confused with his minion counterpart Ganglat, was doing a good good job. He was doing the best job he could ever possibly do. What was that again? Oh right! That was finding the most important person in charge and pretend to be them and tell them everything was perfectly okay and to remain calm. The most important person Ganglati saw earlier was, Tyr, and so there he stood in front of an enraged Zeus, an annoyed Hera and a very confused Hermes. Ph boy, he was so good at his job. What was it again? Oh right! Guard this entrance from those that do not belong here. "I'm sorry, I just don't recognize you at all." Said Ganglati in the same tone of voice as Tyr. Looking at Ganglati, one would say that he looked exactly like Tyr in every possible way… To the untrained. With dopplegangers, there are sometimes, small tells. Obviously, the Greek deities were new initiates to the doppleganger species let alone the confusion and shenanigans that followed them everywhere.

"Hermes, please show the man the letter from Odin, that we were invited here!"

Hermes pulled off his spectacles and blinked at Tyr. How? How was this possible? He was just speaking with Tyr, and no one is faster or as fast as him! Except Iris, but that's beside the point! "Oh right! Sorry, but here it is! We were just" He handed the invitation to the so called Tyr.

Ganglati looked down at the invitation for not even a second and tossed it over his shoulder. "Nope. I don't buy it!"

"What?" Hermes asked.

"Listen here you!-" Zeus leaned into this so called Tyr jabbing a finger into his chest. "I don't know what act or prank you are pulling here, but I'm not playing along! I play bridge with your father every Wednesday, you and I have met before and I won't take this disrespect!"

"What is going on?" A more soft yet masculine voice asked behind them. All eyes fell on the one eyed lilac skinned all-father, Odin.

"Tyr, what is going on here? Why are you harassing our good friends?" The violet skinned god eyed his son. Something was off and not just with his behavior. "I thought you were helping Balder set up the pit?"

Ganglati squinted quizzically at Odin. "How? How would that be possible? I've been here the entire time making sure this festival is safe."

"Safe? Safe from the likes of me!?" argued Zues, "I'm the Zeus! I was invited here and now you accuse me of starting problems?"

"Now dear, theres no need to shout, there certainly seems to be something going on here. We just need to talk things out and get to the bottom of this." Hera assured her husband, placing a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Which brings up the point." Odin stared at Ganglati very carefully almost as if he could see right through him and his missing hand on the wrong side, "Tyr, who told you to make sure this festival was safe? And where is Balder?"

Ganglati stood there in silence wracking his mind to try and remember. Who told him again? "That… That is a very good point!" He turned his gaze way from the All-Father and to Hera who was still a little miffed with him. "We do need to get down to this! Nothing at all is right!"

They felt earth pulse with quakes beneath them. Ganglati's eyes fell down to Tyr sized feet. The underworld. Her! "It's got to be her!" He yelled, "We should have known this would happen!" He clasped his head, even pulling at his hair. "Of all days to start trouble!" He looked up the four other very confused deities, "I apologize for this confusion, but it seems as if some trouble maker has had her hands in this. Father, I will go and apprehend this demon at once!" Before anyone could object, Ganglati was gone in a flash of light that was followed by the sounds of clashing swords.

Ganglat, however had spotted the rainbow bridge touch down to earth and had known to head that way. If Ganglati was told to be someone very important, he would of course, stupidly become a god without even thinking it through. Upon seeing four gods, one of which being Odin. The Mare ditched her disguise and ducked behind a standing stone, hoping that no one had spotted her.

"What on earth was all of that about?" Hermes was the first one to speak up.

"Well, it seems as if we may have a hiccup in our celebration." Odin calmly informed turning to Zeus and Hera, "But the good news is that our sons are on their way to put an end to this."

"My boy? Ha! Consider these festivities just put on hold then! He'll straighten this business out in no time; we might even grab some front row seats!" Zues pounded his chest.

Ganglat gasped and quickly covered her mouth. She needed to find Ganglati and get back to her boss fast! Her boss was powerful, but probably not powerful enough to take on two gods. She poked her head out from behind the standing stones to get a better look. Sometimes with dopplegangers, there were tells, that could hint to their true form. Her eyes fell to the shadows of the four different gods. They all had their shadows so Ganglati could not possibly one of them.

"Um, pardon me, if I say so but, is that guy gonna be capable of helping out? No offense to you Odin, but Tyr there did not seem like he was all quite there."

"Well he has Hercules with him, so I'm sure they could work together on this." Hera said confidently.

Odin shook his head and jammed a thumb over to an empty place behind his shoulders "Oh no, not that son."

Another sound of clashing swords and a flash of light appeared just in the exact spot that Odin was pointing to. This time, the real Tyr was not alone. He had a few valkeries, winged armor clad women, ready for battle.

"Father! I have been looking for you; the spawn of Loki is at its tricks again! I have Balder evacuating the mortals to safety and Hercules has agreed to help me take the beast down once and fo-" Tyr was cut off.

"How!? You were just here!" Hermes could not help himself, garnering the looks of the other two Greek deities.

That was all of the context clues that Ganglat needed to peek back over the stones and look to Tyr's missing shadow. That had to him. He had to have forgotten who he was while pretending yet again. "Why me?" She whined slapping a hand to her face. Now the real trick was trying to sneak over to who she believed to be Ganglati and whisk him away before anyone else notices.

But How?

"No, I was just back there, you know using teleportation… The thing We do to get from one place to another." Tyr answered with confusion hanging off of every word.

"Tyr, you just left to apprehend the demon that dwells in the underworld before it can do any more damage without asking for permission."

"No, I was going to ask you for permission to enter the underworld to stop the demon after assembling the Valkyries to my aid."

"Permission denied. Besides Balder is already heading there."

"What!?" Tyr exclaimed sounding like a teenager that had just experienced a great injustice. Like being denied the chance to go on a trip with friends after finding out that a much younger more irresponsible sibling was allowed to go. We older siblings all know that injustice Tyr, oh we know it so very well. "Why does Balder get a pass!?"

"Because, we can only stand to lose two sons not three."

Zeus and Hera watched the exchange while Hermes was trying to figure out what sort of shenanigans were a foot and why it did not include him. Hera, was especially picking up on the need for permission to enter the underworld. Her mother senses were tingling. She left Zeus' side and approached Odin with arms crossed over her chest. "What exactly is meant by requesting permission? Why would anyone need permission to enter the underworld?"

"I thought you and your brother were on good terms." Zeus crossed his arms, eyeing Odin.

"Not at the moment which is why it is currently a no-go zone, and deemed too dangerous to go unless given permission."

While the deities were distracted, Ganglat performed what she thought was evasive and stealthy maneuvers in order to get to Tyr. Although, in her haste, she had forgotten to throw on another disguise. A couple of rolls here, a trip there, a skip thrown into the mix for flavor, and a mad dash to hide behind Tyr before anyone could notice. Tyr felt something crawl up his fur cape and spun around to try and see what was climbing up. When that succeed he tried to reach with both hands only to be reminded yet again that he was missing one.

"Hey!" Hissed Ganglat as she got close enough to Tyr's ear, "Fall back. What are you doing? Boss said nothing about impersonating-" Ganglat could not finish her sentence as Tyr managed to grab her and bring himself face to face with her. "Hey! Cut it out! Put me back! Ganglati! Cut it out! Or I'm telling the boss you're confusing everyone again!"

"What do we have here?" Tyr smiled recognizing the underling.

The sound of which gained the attention of four other gods in the immediate area. They caught bits and pieces of what was going on, but the hot head of the group, that being Zeus, who does not have a functional and healthy relationship with his younger brother who employs demonic creatures, heard and seen enough. The Valkyries that Tyr brought along also noticed this and waited for someone else to act.

In one moment there was arguments as to what to do about the apprehended demon, and then another moment there were accusations of who was lying dirty rotten pretender, it inevitably it ended in thunderbolts, spears, and arrows being flung at both Ganglat and Tyr. Ganglat could only be left to wonder. Why? Why did this have to happen to her?

* * *

Balder lead Hercules towards the town's water supply, a modest well, in which was barely holding it together, you because of the earthquakes.

"Here! Sometimes, you can take these down."

"Jumping down a well into water that may hopefully lead to the underworld and stop some kind of evil…" Hercules began sarcastically but thought about it some more, "Actually that sounds surprisingly close to what I do. But how do you know that?"

"Oh, before we go down, you might need to hold my hand."

"Why?" Hercules asked giving Balder the side eye.

"Because the underworld is currently supposed to be off limits and the only ones allowed to be brought in have to be either very recently deceased or a god… It's a weird rune barrier thing. You wouldn't understand."

Hercules shrugged his shoulders while tossing a load of rope into the well, "Okay so now what? You want to hold hands or something like that."

"Well if you want to. I don't have a problem with it."

Hercules pinched his brow and blinked, "Well anyways, let's get down there."

The two plunged into the darkness that seemed never ending, until they plunged even further into water. There was a brief moment where Hercules could have noticed a silvery white light flashing briefly as they sank further down. He looked back over his shoulder seeing bubbles, or were they letters swirling in the water. It was disorienting to say the least. Hercules knew enough to hold his breath and try to keep track of where the exit was and the end of the rope at all times. Balder yanked at his hand. He could see the young god was surrounded in a golden bubble of light and was now pulling him in.

Once inside Hercules took a breath of warm fresh air. "Thanks, so do you know where you're going?"

Balder noticed as he controlled the bubble to descend further, "I… Yeah. I'm kind of familiar with this place." He looked to his feet sheepishly. "I know it's weird and it's hard to explain, and I know I shouldn't be here but," He looked up at the hero waiting to be judged.

The hero only let out a sigh of relief and shook his head. "I was wondering when you were going to open up."

"Huh?"

"I have a kid, Balder, who may be young but I know when he is trying to hide something or is too worried to tell me something." Hercules explained. He wasn't sure where Hyllos got it from, he made sure to let Hyllos know that if he just told the truth, he would not be in that much trouble. Perhaps from being babysat by Phil who was a bit of a hot head.

"Oh. It's that obvious huh?"

"You don't strike me as someone who lies or keeps secrets, which besides… Heroes never lie."

'But what if it's to protect someone?"

"Uh…" This began to sound like philosophy talk, and honestly the question came out of the left field for Herc because the Nordic barbarians never struck him as the kind to really "That…Gets kind of complicated. Just tell me what it is."

"I.. I… I have a friend that people think is bad, and sometimes they are bad, but I know that They are just good if given the chance and if someone believes in them. And I guess I think… They could be a good person or even like a hero if they really wanted to." Balder never took his eyes off his feet but still steered the bubble in the right direction. All he had to do was feel around for cold spots.

Hercules was far too focused on taking in and considering Balder's ramblings to even notice the very sudden drop in temperature. As far as he was concerned, the north was always cold, and they were in a bubble surrounded by water. "So who was that other kid you were arguing with earlier?"

"Oh that was my brother Hodor. He's... Different. Like he's blind and I feel bad for him, not because he's blind but because how nobody ever gives him a chance and nobody believes in him and how he gets left out and so he does things. Things that get him into trouble or causes problems for other people just so he can prove himself and… I think earlier today he was up to something and I just wanted to help." Balder threw back his head and groaned, "I made it worse."

Hercules sighed and smiled placing a hand on the younger god's shoulder. He assumed Balder was talking about his brother. "I think that's very admirable of you Balder. I didn't even try to think of things like that as a kid in Prometheus Academy. Until I made a friend with a gorgon. At first, I wasn't very fair to her until my friend Icarus made it clear that we should have just given her a chance, and so I did. I think to answer your question, she saved my life and so in the end, she did good."

Balder perked up, his aura glowing almost blindingly bright. "Really? That's amazing! Wait. What's a gorgon?" At this point, the bubble had reached an opening into a cave system. "Oh here we are!"

The bubble popped them onto what was supposed to be dry land, but Hercules would soon learn that there was a drastic difference in the Greek realm of Hades to the Norse realm of Nifleheim. The difference is temperature and a not so thin layer of ice and snow over everything. The hero wrapped his arms around himself, pulling the furs that he wore closer to him and chattered his teeth.

"Oh… Did you not bring anything warmer with you?"

"Huh? Wha? No, I just thought it would be warmer once we got here."

There was a brief silence before Balder asked, "Why would it be warmer?"**

"Not the point, we need to continue on before another bout of earthquakes caves in on us."

"Oh right!" Balder hurried ahead. "It gets colder the closer you get! So we can use that to find our way to the source.

For a brief moment, Hercules wondered what Balder could possibly mean by the source. If Balder had a brother who seemed to be the opposite of him, and Balder was a warm and friendly god. Then it may be safe for him to assume, the source was Hodor. Oh how could anyone be so technically right but oh so very, very wrong.

As the two headed off further into the cave system, the head of Ganglati who was still convinced he was Tyr crawled out of the water, sputtering ice cold water from his lungs. He heaved himself onto the icy shore and laid there. What was he supposed to do again? He was Tyr! Obviously to take down a great evil and make his boss happy! And he shall do that at once! The Psuedo-Tyr took off down the tunnels following after Balder and Hercules.

* * *

Xitan22: Thank you so much. I'm still working on how he will play into the over all story since I don't like to add characters just for the sake of them being there. Unless it's for a terrible joke. But I am hashing out something that would be a bit of a mentor ship between him and Hel, mostly because a little angry ball of teenage rage and destruction could be heckin' useful. And as for Meg, I plan on doing something else with her. Her no-nonsense attitude will prove to be very helpful. I don't plan on her being the target of any ill will from Hades though, since the way I have my story structured is something that can even be aligned with some of the more popular stories of Hades and Persephone on this site. Just basically take your favorite story, do some minor tweaks and there you go. So at least in my story, he's moved beyond that point. I won;t really have Loki in the story except for mentions as he plays a critical role in Hel's life.

* * *

A/N: Update. Ganglat and Ganglati are said to be servants of Hel. Their names mean delay and slowness. At times Hel refers to them as Dumb and bumber which is a multi lingual bonus. Our very troublesome and derogatory word retard comes from the Italian "Tarde", meaning delayed or slow and was originally meant to describe people that were slow minded or stupid. Hence, Dumb and dumber = Slow and slower.

*So the norse underworld Helheim or Hel is the origin of our word Hell, and counter to how it is depicted today, is actually a frozen wasteland that some people build a second, although very boring lives, after death. The word Hel might have originally meant Grave.

Dopplegangers in German mean double go-er. In some stories they are considered a spirit double meant to reflect a piece of someones soul, and to see a doppleganger of someone meant that person could very likely meet a terrible end. Later on in popular fiction, they developed into a kind of shape shifting monster that eventually takes the place of the original, that we all know and love.


	4. The Drill that will pierce the roof

"Ok, who did it!? Who turned the machine on!?" Hel yelled as she ran towards the machine that somehow kicked on and was beginning to tear down the roof.

"Pyrite did it!"

"Did not! I was runnin' the diag-nos-tics."

"And then you turned it on!"

Hel really could not be dealing with their arguing right now as she was more concerned with trying to trying to pull the half bent lever into the "off" position. The lever snapped. Hel stared at the broken rod in her hand for half a second and tossed it over her shoulder. "Whelp, I guess we're getting this raid underway then." She turned back to the elves and dwarves that were still arguing amongst themselves. Typical.

"Why would have I turned it on if I wasn't sure it woulda exploded on me!"

"I knew it! I knew it was going to explode!"

"HOI!"

The loud clanging machine and roar of boulders falling down around them drowned out Hel's voice. Hel ran towards the group dodging falling rocks, "Hoi!" She repeated. "Get your arses ready, we're going ahead of schedule!"

It was one of the drauger that noticed Hel but reacted to slow. "Hey. Boss is uh,.. trying to get our attention."

"If it was gonna go so wrong, why didn't ya see that in your visions? Check mate elf!"

The old drauger looked between the two main arguers and then back at his boss. Who was more preoccupied with dodging falling boulders, rocks and debris. Then an idea slowly occurred to him. The drauger grabbed the two shorter beings by the scruff of their necks and picked them up.

"Hey! Put me down!" Pyrite and Runatntha yelled in unison.

"Boss wants our attention."

Runatntha and Pyrite turned their heads to see Hel dislodge her foot from under a fallen chunk of rock all the while cursing loudly. Pyrite and Runatntha locked eyes with each other as sweat poured down the side of their foreheads.

"Boss I'll help!"

"No me! I'm much smarter than him!"

They scrambled to help their boss who honestly no longer needed their help. "Get off me! I don't need your help!" Hel pushed both the dwarf and elf back before rising to her feet only to duck back down as another chunk of rock crashed to the ground right beside them. "Been tryin' to tell ya to head into the tunnels and wait, we're goin' ahead with the raid."

The machine behind them made a sickening whir as metal strained under pressure. Steam and smoke filled the cavern. One of the side drills snapped off and tumbled through nearby stalagmites, the drill bit still running sending the large chunk of machinery barreling through everything in its path sporadically.

Hel stood there wide eyed with her hands on her shoulders and tight lipped. This could not possibly get any worse. "Scratch that, we're gettin' the fucke outta here."

Back in the shadows, Hodor was listening and feeling the scene play out. The elven robes and mask* that he wore accompanied by his slouch that made him appear much shorter all made him appear as one of the elven entourage if anyone looked too closely into the shadows. With an alibi established, misdirection cast and the seeds of dissent sown, his takeover was inevitable. It was maybe going a little slower than he thought. The cavern was supposed to collapse on them all and they were already planning on evacuating. He couldn't really have that now could he?

Hodor flicked his wrist, feeling the shadows around the marauding drill harden and push it in another direction cutting off Hel's escape. Feeling confident in his plans enough, he snuck out with the rest of the escaping dwarves, elves and undead.

Hel slid to a stop, usually relying on creating a film of ice under her to slide on her feet but this time it was backfiring horribly. She threw herself to the ground and dug her claws into the ice slowing her approach by mere inches. Hel scrambled away from the drill, conjuring walls of ice over her shoulders. Not even walls of ice can completely halt a spinning drill, but only momentarily delay it. Hel skated as far away from it as she could while the drill careened into a nearby stalagmite column. The ground did not shake under her feet. Even if it did, it would not worry her too much. It was the roof that shook above her that truly worried her. She slid to a stop near the central control unit of the drill and summoned pillars of ice in several places to stabilize the stone and dirt above her. The stability didn't last long as one of the two other tertiary drills smashed through one of her ice pillars.

Hel smacked her mask's forehead and sighed. "I always knew I'd be taken out by one of my own schemes just not this soon." She groaned and went to disarming the mechanism, the only way she knew how. By smashing it.

* * *

Further down into the caverns, Balder and Hercules continued to trudge their way into the cave system. The further they went, the colder things got. It wasn't long before Balder glanced to his side to see Hercules was still shivering in his furs. It was a reminder to the young god that Herc was still mortal.

"You know, you can borrow my coat, it should keep you warm. I think we're about the same size." Balder offered.

"Thank you, I really should have prepared for this."

"Well it's not like either of us exactly planned on stopping a trouble maker in our frozen tundra of an underworld."

"Trouble maker?" Herc repeated as he took Balder's white furred coat. There was a strange warmth radiating from it, like the warmth of the gentle morning sun that enveloped him as soon as he pulled it over his shoulders. "That's a funny thing to say about your brother."

"My? Oh! You mean!-" Balder tried to speak up.

"Balder! What are you doing here!?" a voice called out from behind them.

Balder froze, his eyes locking onto his older brother Tyr that now stood behind them. "I uh.. I… I was here.." He looked to Herc desperately for help.

"Please don't be mad at Balder," Hercules interjected. "He honestly wanted to help after getting people to safety, and he just wanted to make sure that-

Ganglati, who still looked like Tyr, blinked at Hercules, trying to pin a name to his face. But of course could not recall a single thing. "Uh… Right! That…" He attempted to slam his fist into an open palm. "That... Is an excellent plan! That means we can take her down easier!" The doppleganger looked at his missing fist with confusion as to why that hand gesture did not work as well.

Hercules squinted at Tyr. None of this seemed right. "Oh, I'm glad you aren't too upset at Balder…" A word caught his attention. _Her_. "Wait? Her? What do you mean?" He felt Balder nudge him in the side.

"His hand. He's missing the wrong one." Balder hissed.

Hercules whirled his head around to Balder with a look of bewilderment. "How? I- I actually don't remember which hand is missing." He hissed back as Tyr approached the two of them. When he didn't receive a response, the demi-god further examined Balder. Balder squinted his eyes at Tyr and readied a ball of light in his fist. Then it clicked for the godling.

"Ganglati?" Balder asked, his brow wrinkling.

Ganglati stopped in his tracks, "Come again? I- No. Tyr. My name is Tyr. Me. Tyr." Tyr pressed his hand and missing hand up to his chest for emphasis.

Alarm bells rang in Hercules head and he readied his sword and shield and nodded to Balder as their eyes caught.

"I'll take care of this, you go and stop Hodor." Balder threw the sphere of light in his hands at Ganglati. The form of Tyr was engulfed in light, and the form crumpled into a shrieking mass of wriggling black. Herc took this as his clue and ran further into the caverns.

With the hero gone, Balder turned to the doppleganger that now withered into the shadows. Dealing with dopplegangers is not easy and especially one like Ganglati. "Oh, Ganglati, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it." Balder called out into the emptiness and waited for an answer. "Look, I know you get confused, and that's not your fault and you're just trying to do your job but I got to do my job too." Balder lowered his shield to his side and opened up his arms, "I'm here to help."

He heard a whispering hissing sound that almost sounded like nervous laughter from behind him. Balder turned around slowly and conjured a small orb of dancing light in his palm but saw nothing. At least until he looked down at his feet. His shadow was now a silhouette, which is pretty normal for shadows, but this silhouette has two holes for eyes and a crooked frown. "Oh there you are."

* * *

Herc ran towards the source of the cold and he could feel the shaking of the earth getting worse as well as a loud shrieking sound of metal, whirring and crunching of ice. He knew he found the right place when he ran into a particularly large cavern completely coated in shaved ice. His eyes darted around the scene, assessing the situation. The large mechanism in the center of the room was something out of Daedalus'' wild dreams meeting Philitetes' worst training contraptions. The best he could make sense of it was that it had a central piece that looked like some kind of platform while smaller drills were flinging chunks of ice and stone at the ground. At the center of it all was a tall, masked being in rags banging away at the center. An obvious disguise and all the information he needed.

"Hodor, your plans of mischief and mayhem end now!" Herc yelled striking a pose with his sword pointed at the being.

Hel snapped her head towards him with her pick axe frozen in mid swing. "Hodor?'

With all due respect, it was hard to understand Hel's voice under that mask, creating a an echo when her voice is already a bit brassy. She was frequently mistaken for a young male and at times, had given up on correcting anyone. Being severely malnurished and under developed didn't help. There was a moment of awkward silence between the two. Hercules waited for his foe to shoot back some quip but instead all he got was,

"Who the fucke are you?"

"Uh…" Herc lowered his sword slightly and then resumed his stance, "I am Hercules, hero of Greece, Son of-"

"A greasy dude? Some greasy human coming down here? Really?" She asked incredulously. "Whatever… I ain't got time for you. Take a bath." Hel held out her hand and conjured up a huge chunk of ice and fired it towards the ceiling before returning back to smashing apart the machine.

"I- No, you see Greece is a place that I'm from, and I saved it from-" He cut himself off raising his sword for the perceived attack. It was the crumbling of the stone stalactite above him that alerted him to her true attack. He tossed aside the shield and sword and held out his arms as the massive column fell onto him. Completely unnoticed by Hel.

Hel stopped her banging away as a thought passed from her mind through her lips. "Maybe I shouldn't be blasting away at the ceiling when I'm trying to prevent it from falling on me." Then something that was supposed to happen, didn't. That thing was the background noise of a human being smooshed and his soul being added to her never ending horde of undead that constantly needed things from her. When that didn't happen, she casually glanced over her shoulder.

"Are you dead yet?"

Her red eyes bulged behind the mask at the sight of this seemingly normal "greasy" human not only holding up the massive column but also tossing it aside. "How!?"

"Like I said, Hodor, your mayhem ends now! Surrender and there won't be any trouble."

By this time, Hel actually caught the name he was calling her. Normally she would be insulted that her evil deeds were being attributed to some arshloch that thought he could run the underworld better. However, f this meant that specific someone got in trouble for all of this, it might as well be him. Herc watched the masked being's shoulders shake with what he could only assume to be rage.

"As if! I will continue all of my evil deeds as much as I like… Or my name is not Hodor," She could not keep a straight face under her mask and struggled to keep herself from busting out with laughter which thankfully was drowned out by the large machine that was still trying to bring the roof down on the two of them. It reminded her to stay focused and find some other way to get around this super strength human problem.

Meanwhile Hodor was fuming at Hel posing as him. He did not sound like that at all! Was she laughing? Who does she think she is laughing about him like that? He clenched his fists as shadows trembled around him, but the elves and dwarves pushing past him to safety also reminded him that he will settle his score later. Things start to shake again as it seems like there might be a cave in.

"Hoi, Drauger! Up and front!" She waited. They were slow moving. She peeked over her shoulder to see one undead hand still sticking out of a pile of snow and rocks. "That explains it." She slid over and yanked the large undead from his second burial. "Try not to kill this one too quickly; I want him workin' for me." Feeling satisfied with that, she returned to hammering away at the panel to the power only to have the head of the pick ax fly off. "Dammit."

Once righted the Drauger slowly turned to Hercules and took a couple of steps towards him seeming slow at first but at each step, the undead grew larger till it was towering over him.* The demigod picked up his sword and shield from the ground and charged towards the drauger only to have to dodge out of the way as the drauger came crashing down from blunt-force pick-axe trauma. "Well that was easier than expected." To be quite honest, he was feeling a little bit cheated out of a good fight, but it made a lot of sense by now. He was facing an inexperienced kid. An evil kid bent on destroying the surface for who knows what reason, but still a kid. He trudged through the snow as quickly as he could towards the kid. "Okay. End of the line Hodor." He reached out to grab the kid by their shoulder but stopped. He felt an instant chill as the masked kid swiveled its head around, their red eyes meeting his. It was the kind of chill that you could only get by inhaling a bucket of slush. The chill nearly knocked the air out of him but just enough sense to realize what he was dealing with. Hercules instinctively brought up his shield just in time for Hel to bare black claws through her bandages and take a swipe. He held the shield in place with each successful hit, but quickly realized that his shield now had deep gashes he could see through that rusted and widened by the second. He had to get out of her range. With a strong shove, he pushed what was left of his shield to bash the being sending it flying back into the distant wall.

The force of the shield bash was enough to have Hel's body leave an indentation into the wall, which would be the end for most villains that Hercules faced. However, he watched as the figure picked itself up, its body making sickening popping and crunching sounds as bones popped back into place. Oh it was pissed, but the wide toothy grin in the mask and echoed laughter behind it signified that this being was going to enjoy this.

Hel pulled out her short knife from her boot, the blade was a sharpened, crooked and winding piece of metal of a pale white that seemed to faintly glow. She flipped the knife into the air and caught it, not taking her eyes off of the human before her. With her free hand, she sent forth a flurry of ice and snow to conceal her movements. Hercules turned away, feeling the sting of ice shards and snow pelt him, but it was quickly replaced by a feeling of warmth. A glowing light emitted from under the white fur coat wrapped tightly around his shoulders, the very coat Balder had lent him. The warm protection reassured him.

With her foe distracted, Hel skated after him to unleash a flurry of hits each one quickly paired by Hercules' own sword. Each failure to land a hit only made her grow more and more frustrated and frenzied. One wrong swipe and a perfected parry left her left hand severed clean off surprising the both of them.

"Well that was uncalled for!" Hel yelled catching her lost hand with her right.

Herc gapped and quickly apologized, "Oh gosh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" The thought of how was it possible for him, a mortal to be able to slice a god's limb off so easily was quickly interrupted by a slap to the face. With the hand. That he severed. He should have known this one would play dirty, he thought to himself feeling a sharp kick into his gut sending him flying into the path of a drill that had finally broken off. The demigod rolled out of the way feeling the whir of the blade blow past his hair and bits of stone and ice bounce off of his coat even more. As soon as the deadly blade was past, he got to his feet and grabbed the body of the drill, hefted it over his shoulder and tossed it at Hel.

For the most part Hel stood there watching this feat of strength, seemingly in awe, but as soon as the drill came at her, she slid to the side revealing the final drill arm behind her. The collision of the two machine parts sent shrapnel flying everywhere. Herc had only a few seconds to dodge each incoming piece, eyeing a large warped plate of steel on the ground next to him, he pulled it over him. Knowing now that the hero could easily lift objects many times his own weight, Hel was not going to rely on a simply cave in of steel and stone to finish him off. She conjured the air around her into a flurry of snow and ice. As soon as Hercules pushed the rubble off of him, he found himself blinded by the blanket of snow.

He pulled the white fur coat closer to his body and held out his sword and waited to see a sign of his attacker to ambush him. He caught a few glimpses of shadowed form moving here and there but he would not chase after the bait. The crunch of snow behind him was enough to cause him to turn and swing his sword behind him. He felt his blade slice through a form, but that form was nothing more than a snowman with a wide toothy grin and Hels hooded cloak around it.

"Oh gosh, Hodor, I'm so sorry but… Oh." He readied his stance just in time for Hel to drop from above onto him, swinging, clawing, kicking and even biting him. Herc did his best to keep the taller Godling off of him and even managing to wrestle it into an arm lock. "Hodor! This needs to stop! Your brother is- OW! Don't bite!" This would have gone on until the roof caved onto the two of them, but a flash of white light came hurtling at the two of them. Hel was stunned, being both blinded and disoriented. With sickening snapping sounds, she dislocated her limps and oozed out of his grasp, trying to escape just to stumble and be knocked out by a falling stone.

Hercules winced and blinked his eyes hearing someone rush towards him.

"Oh, I'm so so so so sorry! I didn't mean to! I mean, I meant to break you to up, but- Are you hur-AAAAAH! Your arm!" The gasping bubbly voice obviously belonged to Balder. "I'm sorry, when we get back, I get you patched up- I didn't mean to-"

Hercules placed his hand on Balder's head the moment sight returned to him. "When we get back. For now, we need to stop the city from falling onto us." He stood up and approached the central console and eyed the broken lever. "He even broke the lever?" He asked. "Why would he break the lever?" Hercules asked Balder spying him carefully pick up his "twin brother".

"I- I dunno. Maybe it was an accident?" Balder asked trying to drag Hel's unconscious body closer. She was always a bit bigger than him and on the denser side. Once he was closer, Balder was able to take a closer look at the device. There was a sickly green glow coming from the main panel. "Can you get that open?"

Herc looked at Balder and then the panel and opened it with hand like a cupboard door. "Like this?" At this point, it dawned on him that his wife's dry humor was definitely snaking its way into him. Balder's wide eyed stare into the cavity drew his own attention into it. There was an extremely large glowing crystal with images of spirits swirling around inside and screaming. "What is that?"

"I- I- I think its souls." Balder's voice sounded devastated with a smidge of soul shattering sprinkled on top.

"Souls!? You guys put souls inside stones?"

"No! That's not supposed to happen! That's never supposed to happen! Just take it out!"

Hercules did not need to be told twice. He pulled it out, feeling the sickening yet familiar cold that threatened to suck the life out of him, if just given the chance. The machine above them hummed to a stop, the ceiling above them no longer threatening to fall on them.

* * *

Meanwhile on a hill, everyone was waiting nervously for the quakes to stop. Even after the last quakes stopped, many were nervous to call it safe just yet. The valkeries were the ones to warn them to stay away, in case there were aftershocks.

"I think… I think they did it." Phil said, the tinge of doubt remaining in the back of his mind. He told himself, there was no way his boy was going to go all this way, achieve his dreams, raise a family and then fall victim while on a guy's night out. Not on his watch. And not when he had to deliver the news to Megara.

"I see them! They made it!" Icarus's voice pierced his thoughts. The sunburnt human had borrowed one of Ivaldi's telescopes and perched himself up on one of the standing stones.

"Let me see that!" Phil hopped up the stones and grabbed the telescope from him.

Through it he could see Hercules and Balder who followed very closely after him while carrying the unconscious Hel in his arms. "They're safe! They stopped the ground from caving in! The festival will go on!" The Satyr yelled. The crowd around them heard this and cheered. The flood of people ran towards the town to greet the two.

Balder stood still seeing a stampede of Viking mortals running towards them. "What are they doing?"

"I think they are coming to cheer us on?" Herc said, weary of shouting Vikings running towards him. To be fair, it is a very safe assumption to be wary of yelling Vikings running towards you.

"Oh. Never really had that before…" Balder said a small smile appearing onto his face, his arms almost dropping Hel. Oh! How could he forget! "I need to get out of here!"

"Why? Don't you want to be here for when-"

"I don't want to be in trouble! I mean I don't want…" Balder looked down to Hel in his arms and then to Hercules.

"You don't want your brother to get into trouble?"

Balder had never lied in his entire life. Even the thought of lying made him squirm. His throat grew dry and he knew lying was wrong but betraying his best friend in the entire nine worlds… Was even worse. "I- I- I don't want my brother to get into trouble." He stated. Technically it wasn't a lie. He told himself. Was it his fault that someone mistook someone for someone else? "So, I need to go. So my brother will not get into trouble. I do not want Hodor to be in trouble."

"Okay, but you two really need to have a serious talk with your parents, and I want to hear you two are working things out." Hercules lectured the young god, pointing at him with his uninjured hand.

Balder nodded very quickly and vanished in a ray of light to hide his friend. Or make sure she was okay and won't get into trouble. Maybe someplace like the VIP area's kitchen and pantry. Leaving Herc to deal with the cheering crowd.

* * *

Updated A/N:

Hodor is the twin brother of Balder. He is the god of darkness, and winter.

At least in my story, I'm playing with the idea that elven beauty is so uniform, and flawless that there are very few identifiers in elven faces. As a cultural adaptation, they wear masks with different symbols and marking painted or etched onto them signifying their social and familiar standing. I also did this to tie in the death masks that used to decorate the faces of the dead that seems to be found in many cultures.


	5. The Hidden One

It was a whirlwind of celebration once the festival picked right up after it left off. Hercules was quickly whisked off to a hut set up close to the God's VIP section to care for his wounds. The strangest thing about it was that the hut in itself was very guarded, almost as if he was being quarantined off in ways that reminded him of his time assisting Hippocrates. Visitors were kept out, and he could almost understand it except even his parents were kept at bay.

Herc sat on the bench and waited as a couple of women, he assumed were Valkyries inspected his wounds. His fingers that had the early beginnings of frostbite and were being treated with warm rags, but the deep gashes in his shoulder and bite marks caused enough of a stir to have Eir called into the room. Eir, the minor goddess, a physician of the Norse gods stood beside him inspecting the wounds.

"You said you got attacked by a being in the underworld?" She asked withdrawing her hand from his head and turning to fish out a bottle from a cabinet. "A minor fever so you're already developing an infection."

"An infection already? Well, yes, I believe it to be-"Herc caught himself. Balder needed to be the one to talk to his parents about his brother, and he was just going to try and give him a chance to talk to his parents. "The one that I fought was covered in tatters, a mask, and was surrounded by these… I think they were undead. Come to think about it, I never really fought the undead… Is that a frequent problem here?"

Eir noticeably flinched at the mention of a mask. "The undead. Yes. We have issues with the dead coming back in their bodies and haunting the living but they should be trapped in the underworld for the time being. It seems to me like you got a bite from a drauger, so I'm going to give you this."

Eir turned to the demigod and offered him a flask of water. "Drink this and it should protect you from any infections you might have gotten."

Herc took the flask and drank it, tasting nothing but water. He blinked and asked, "Water?"

"It's from my home in Lyfjaberg, we have a healing springs there." She pulled out some string and a needle to sew his wounds shut. "I'd mix it with some mead but it reduces the effectiveness of the spring water."

"So why do the dead return to haunt the living? The only time that happens in Greece is when there's a disruption in the dead being able to find their way to the underworld or if there's some kind of-"

"The dead find their way just fine. The valkeries take care of that. You ask a lot of questions." Eir cut him off, making her stitching much harsher. "Stay still or I will stitch you up wrong."

The relatively harsh silence was broken as Zeus pushed through the door causing a couple of valkeries to quickly step out of the way.

"I'm here to see my son."

Eir looked up from her work and grimaced. "You must wait for the quarantine to be over."

"We're gods. We don't get sick!" He shot back.

"And yet I am still a physician of gods… Could you please take a step back, I need to make a couple more stitches."

"What are you quarantining from!? What in the heavens could you be so worried about that you are all being so secretive about?" Zeus boomed at the much smaller goddess.

"Dad, don't be upset at her… Especially since she's the one patching me up."

"He's right you know." Eir chimed in. "Besides that's on a need to know basis, and I am not at liberty to really say."

"Need to know basis? Well, I need to know, so tell me."

"You will have to ask the all-father about that, but for now my concern is stitching him up in time before I get another flood of drunken gods that stupidly injured themselves in weird ways. If you have questions that I can't answer, you are better off asking Odin or Frigga. Not me."

Before the argument could get even more heated, Uller poked his green skinned head through a crack in the door. "Hey Eir, Honir got shot with an arrow again and… Oh."

Eir shot Uller a disdainful look that froze the archer's blood faster than any snowstorm. "Didn't I just prescribe him to stay out of the archery range!?"

"Well yes but, he couldn't decide if you said being beside it or behind it would be better… But I see you are busy, so I'll just tell Honir that this is his new life now-"

Before he could close the door, Eir was on her feet and yelling, "Uller, you tell Honir I'll be out in a minute! From this point on, medical staff and patients only! Any other questions must be taken with the appropriate persons! No. Uller, Honir needs to wait until I am finished with this one!"

Herc had never seen gods sheepishly slink out of the way so quickly before, leaving Eir standing there pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Um… Ms Eir, Am I done?"

"Yes…" She waved him off, and then changed her mind, "No… Sorry, just sit still, I'll finish you up." Eir resumed working on stitching the hero up.

"No problem ma'am. I understand things can get a bit hectic… Is there anything specific I need to do about drauger bites?"

"Hectic doesn't even begin to cover it, and as for drauger bites… Typically you need to worry about infections but aside from that, not much else. They're dead so, as far as I have seen, you can't really get any anything else aside from a run off the mill infection."

Herc squinted his eyes down at the bottle handed to him. He wondered what it was for then? He felt the last stitch in his shoulder seal up his wound. Something was not adding up.

"There we go, all finished up!" Eir announced. "I will prescribe you no rough housing for the next couple of days, don't wash it until a full day has passed and do make an appointment with a physician at some point in the next ten days or so to remove the stitches." Eir mumbled with her back to him, not even noticing that the demigod had already left her office.

Herc's parents were whispering amongst themselves while waiting for him outside of the hut.

"Dear, that could have been handled a lot better."

"None of this is making sense! Last year Odin said he and his brother were on good terms."

"Well things could have changed then, we don't know anything and so we really need to do this right now? We're here to enjoy ourselves, and Frigga and I were supposed to trade baking recipes." Hera's voice held the stubborn undertones of 'don't you ruin this for me, so help you.'

"He's right." Herc spoke up, not liking to see his parents bicker. It was not often he got to see them, and to see them bicker twisted his stomach into knots. "What I mean is, there is something going on here. Eir said she could not answer our questions, not that she didn't know the answers."

The two deities fell quiet and turned to Herc, almost as if they were trying to pretend they weren't bickering at all. The silence remained until Zues spoke up,

"Ha! I told you! At least someone here believes me!"

"But I think it's something they need to sort out." Hercules cut off his father, causing the tanned god's boastful smile to disappear from his face. "I mean, I was down there with Balder, and he's a good kid. He knows more about what is going on, but I think he's also trying to fix it."

"What are you talking about boy? Spit it out."

"When I was down there he said his brother was up to no good, trying to prove himself-"

"Hey cats! Just popping in to let you know that the festivities are about to start, but I got a little bit of juicy rumors if you know what I mean." Hermes spoke up as he appeared in the middle of the group. He lowered his sunglasses, "It seems like not just Vili but also Ve seem to have had a falling out with Odin. When pressed for details they just said Frigga threw them out of her house while Odin was away so that may explain the bad blood."

Hera crossed her arms and scowled, "Good for her. Honestly, I don't know how some gods get it into their heads that they can just come over and harass someone else's wife."

Zeus nodded quietly in nervous agreement before speaking up, "I suppose that makes a lot of sense, but what about this earthquake, you said Balder's brother caused it?" Zeus quickly shifted his attention towards his son.

"That's right. He didn't want me to say anything about it because he didn't want his brother to get punished for it, but I told him he needed to tell his parents."

Hera scoffed, "Oh of course… Teenagers… We all know how that will work out. I say…" Hera tapped her chin and look up into the air. How did they always trick Ares to admitting the things he did when he was hiding something? "Zeus honey, we're just going to have to make sure that his parents know what their boys are up to won't we?"

* * *

Her head ached. She could get up and stick her head into a freezing underground river, but that would require her to get up and everything ached too much for that. She could lay here forever until the pain ended, which could be forever. Or she could actually open her eyes and crawl into the nearest frozen river. She weighed her options and chose to be impatient. The first attempt at opening her eyes did not go as planned, just like the rest of her life. She hissed and recoiled from the light shining into her eyes.

"Stay still, I'm trying to patch up your head, I'm not quite good at healing yet."

Hel recognized that voice and then it all came back to her. "Dammit Bright-eyes." She grumbled and roll over, falling off of the table she laid on, landing with a yelp.

"Shh shh! Please don't-"

"Bright-eyes, why you gonna go and blast me like that? Where'd he go?" Hel sat up, her eyes peering just over the table at Balder, and then back down to the table where her mask was laying beside the jars of preserves and cooking equipment were pushed aside to make room for her. She grabbed at the mask but Balder was a little faster.

She tugged her mask back from him.

"Please let me fix you up Hel, I'll fix you back up."

"And then, can I go kill him?"

Balder's shoulders sagged with exasperation, "Nooooooo. But you can have your mask back, and I'll give you some food, and I'll send you on your way, but we need to talk."

Hel squinted at her friend for a good minute but her eyes darted away to the rest of the room. There was a lot of food here. Her grip on her mask loosed "Did you put me in your fridge?"

"What? No! It's the pantry, Can you hold still?"

Hel rolled her eyes and hopped back onto the table, letting Balder closer. Lousy, goody two-shoe friends and their incessant caring.

"Okay, you're going to have to tell me which of these are new." Balder carefully brushed her hair out of her eyes. Her new scars blended in with her old ones so quickly on her good side.

"Your guess is as good as mine boyo."

"Hel I'm being serious."

He was the only one that she let this close to her. She imagined him to be the only one in the entire universe that wasn't immediately repulsed by her looks. There were the undead, but she still did not like anyone to stare at her.

Hel had to be the only being in the entire cosmos that was simultaneously immortal and dead at the same time. One half of her body was a pale ice blue, while the other was an iridescent and mottled rotting black. There were several places where bone and flesh were exposed, her face being no exception. Balder was able to find the newest additions of bruises and cracks in her skull by following the trail of dried, blackened ichor that ran down the side of her face.

"You really had me worried… And don't take this the wrong way, but, what were you thinking? You could have really gotten into trouble and you could have hurt Ivaldi." Balder lectured channeling a healing spell from his hand into her.

Hel pulled back. "What was Ivaldi doing there? He ain't supposed to be back for another… Month?"

"It's been a month." He handed her a golden apple just as she was crossing her legs on the table and already going through the jars of spices next to her. She opened one jar, sniffed it, and recoiled before spotting the golden apple offered to her. It could not disappear from Balder's hands fast enough.

"Eh you lose time when you're busy." Hel mumbled with her mouth full.

Balder crossed his arms, "Busy doing what? Planning more raids? Or typical goofing around?"

"A little bit of both. Why? You trying to ruin my fun?"

"No- yes- I mean, I'm going to stop you if you hurt people but- I didn't think you would sink so low as to-"

Hel paid him no mind as she finished her apple by way of swallowing the core and hopping off the table and opening the cabinets for raiding.

"So what if I raid a couple of your festivals? It's not like you guys ever run out of anything! And it's not like it's not gonna go to some use!"

"No that's not what I'm talking about!" Then Balder realized it sounded like he condoned her raids on the surface world. "Not like I want you to raid- And things don't work like that!" His cheeks began to glow into a shade of pink from frustration only to be met with Hel's cackling.

"Oh man! Ganglati! That's a good one! Balder, look at 'em! Okay! Now make the cheeks a little pink! Pinker!"

Balder whirled around to be met with a face very, very similar to his own, although now a bright fuchsia, Hel's fits of cackles ringing in his ears. He had forgotten about Ganglati being in his shadow. "Ha, ha very funny… Can you stop now?" His double laughed as it shrank down into a shadow that slithered across the floor towards Hel and taking the form of her shadow.

"Ganglati, you almost got it completely down," She held out her hand for Ganglati to slap, "Just gotta get his eyes a little brighter- like innocent and all that."

"Hel, Ganglati- Can you keep it down? We're going to get caught!" Balder found himself hissing at the two of them.

Hel sat up and stared at Balder, "Where are we?"

"The pantry."

"Where is the pantry?" Her eyes squinted at the teenage god, wondering briefly if he was even capable for sarcasm, or any amount of sass.

"Next to the kitchen?" Balder said cringing through a strained smile.

"Where is the kitchen and if you say in the house, I will bang pots and pans, and make so much noise!"

"No no no no!"

At that moment the door opened up, causing all three of them to scramble. Hel ducked into a small pantry with Ganglati following her inside. Balder stood with his back to the cupboard, his arms crossed behind him. Idunn's face was covered in flour and dough stuck into her light brown hair. She stopped in her tracks as her eyes landed on Balder standing in the middle of the room.

"What are you doing here?"

"Um, I… Wanted to retrieve an apple for-"

"Is your brother refusing to eat apples again?" She asked crossing her arms.

"Uh- Well he really wants to grow up and be taken serious I guess!"

Idunn pulled another golden apple and handed it to Balder, "Take this, and go force this down your brothers mouth, because I can't deal with Frigga right now."

"I'll take it to him!" Balder took the golden apple from her and tried to push her out of the pantry. Her heels dug into the floor boards. "Oh no you don't. Don't think I don't know what you're up to in here!"

Hel felt cramped in there, and she could hear the voice of another deity. Was she is Asgard? Something clicked in her mind. The gears of heated vengeance turned in her head and before Idunn could turn around the doors of the cupboard cracked open just a hair. Grey-black slime oozed out onto the floor and slipped across the floor dodging the footsteps of Idunn and Balder.

"Uh! What? What am I doing?" Balder asked defensively, fear rising in his voice.

"You're just here to sneak some more food!" Idunn stabbed her finger onto Balder's chest. "You need to be patient like the rest of them! I can't have you coming in here and eating everything before it makes it to the table!" She forcefully turned balder around and began to shove him outside of the door.

"No no no wait!" Balder could have used his strength to resist, but why risk the furious wrath of a nord woman in her kitchen? Why would anyone be so foolish? The door was slammed right behind him. Neither of them seemed to notice the being crawling across the floor and slipping through the cracks as they went from the pantry through the kitchen and out into the hall.

Balder paced in front of the door waiting for an opportunity to sneak back in. A scream coming from behind the door threw him into a panic. Balder opened the door to find Idunn tearing open the cabinets and pulling out rotten fruit, and veggies. "Oh come on! If we were out, couldn't anyone just tell me- Balder what are doing here?"

"I-I-I heard you scream."

"While you're here, take these out." Idunn dumped the rotten food into the young gods arms and returned to cleaning out the kitchen. Balder painfully sighed and turned around, and bumped into Hel's figure. Only her scars all wrong.

"Ganglati!" Balder hissed. "Go home!"

"What was that?" Idunn asked just as Ganglati frowned and returned to his shadow form and slunk away.

"No-nothing!" Balder called out quickly hurrying to take out the garbage all the while keeping his eyes out for his friend. Where could she have gone?

* * *

Sorry for the delay. The holidays are a very busy time for me with a lot of exhibitions coming up as well as family birthdays. This chapter was going to be longer but I felt like this part was a pretty good stopping point, maybe even building up some tension.

Xitan22: Thank you for your support, it really encourages me.

Angel of Hunky-Doryness: Thank you! And I love your fic, sorry that I haven't reviewed it yet. I'm always rather shy when it comes to these things. But I will make it a point to. I'm working towards making Balder as so sweet and nice that its hard to dislike him but still allow him to have some flaws and make mistakes. I'm also glad you enjoy the jokes. I was worried they were too obscure. I'll definitely pm you when the time comes, thank you for allowing me to use your fic. I definitely plan on writing more fics after the end of this one, kind of expanding on the universe and exploring why Hel exists the way she does because I'm attempting to write a character that for all intents and purposes, shouldn't exist.

* * *

Eir- Sometimes identified as a goddess, and other times as a Valkyrie. She is the physician of the Norse world, and is described as very kind and compassionate, and very knowledgeable about herbalism. She is also associated with warding off pestilence and sickness. I based her personality after Sydney McElroy from Sawbones. Absolutely worth a listen to if you are interested in medical history.

Idunn- Goddess that guards the golden apples that kept the gods young. Without them, the gods quickly aged and withered away.


	6. No good goody two shoe friend

Far from the party and festivities up on the surface realm, Tyr and Ganglat had managed to escape Zeus' thunderous fury all the way back into another cave system. They had barely made it with their hair intact. From that very brief episode of running for their lives, they formed a short comradery that only lasted until they had caught their breath.

Ganglat laid flat on her face in the dirt, her hair and furry tail was singed and fluffed out with static. "Why? Why am I always this unlucky?" She whined and peeled her face from the dirt to glare at Tyr who was slumped against a stalagmite. "And why did you run off and do something so stupid like impersonate Tyr!?"

Tyr pried one blacked eye open and glared at the Mare. "For your information, I never impersonated anyone. I am Tyr." Now that he wasn't running to avoid being struck down with lightning bolts, he can finally get around to questioning this demon. Right after everything stopped aching.

"Right." Ganglat rolled her eyes. "And I'm just an imaginary unicorn friend of a princess." She pushed herself up to her hooves and glared at the god.

"Then I guess you are an imaginary unicorn friend of a princess. And a rather bad one too!"

Ganglat slapped her forehead and grumbled, "You do this every time Ganglatti! You take a form, you get their memories, and then you forget you're a doppleganger!"

Tyr finally rose to his feet, towering over Ganglat, "If I'm a doppleganger how do you explain my ability to teleport, and to summon weapons?" He held out his hand and a sword appeared right into his hand. "Huh!?"

Ganglat blinked, looking nonplussed, "You also get his abilities. And if you could teleport, why didn't you just teleport us out of there instead of running for our lives?" She crossed her arms over her chest, a smile curling onto her face.

"Uh. I uh." Tyr could not come up with an explanation. Why _didn't_ he just teleport out of there?

"Exactly."

"No listen here! I am Tyr, because I can tell you things about him you wouldn't know otherwise! Like the fact I was raised by Ice giants!"

"Pfft! Everyone knows that! And everyone knows he was adopted and also turned his back on them and joined the Aesir!"

Tyr blinked, remembering the tabloids once that got out, but it was quickly brushed aside for he was recognized as Odin's son in the following years. "Oh. Right."

"Tell me what you had for breakfast two weeks ago!"

"That's insane! Nobody ever remembers what they ate two weeks before!"

"I do!"

"Then what did you eat?" Tyr asked hoping to catch the demon at her own game.

"Dreams. Duh."

"Oh. Right." Tyr fell silent, but his thoughts were trying to recall every inane detail of his life. The big main events, people heard of and shared in their tales of Tyr the fearless god of war. But nothing else stood out in his mind. Did he ever do anything else? Did he really have any other hobby? How was he to know if he really was Tyr? What if his memories were false, and even his abilities were a gross mockery? The war god had never had to ponder the validity of his existence till now and the creeping terror on his face was plain for Ganglat to see.

"Alright Ganglatti, Let's just go rendezvous with the boss and then you can figure out how to be back to your old self."

"Ganglatti?"

"That's your name. Jeeze. I swear, boss may call me slow, but you're the slower one." She led him further into the cave system. One of the underground springs was bound to head to at least one of the cities.

* * *

This was not Asgard. This was not Asgard at all. Hel winced at the influx of light from her cramped spot under a long table. The constant nudging of eventually to be undead heroes knees into her ribs did not bother her as much as the Ymir awful foot stench. If she was not in Asgard then where was she? Her red eyes squinted from the bright light and the different women walking around it carrying drinks. Those had to be Valkyries. Their long shirts however would suit her for cover. She waited till one approached the table and slipped underneath her feet, compressing her body as small and flat as she could.

"Can you get me another glass? This mead tastes a bit… Sour." One of the men asked the bored Valkyrie.

"Sure thing." She said raising her eyebrow at the horn of mead. The Valkyrie turned to take the drink but stopped, feeling her shoe stick to the floor. Her eyes closed as she breathed through her nose. Of course she stepped in some food on the floor. It was all going to be alright, she will just make sure all of their valiant deaths were as painful and brutal as possible. She limped her way towards a fellow Valkyrie to hand her the soured drink. "Here take this, I'm going to go clean off my shoe." This exchange happened long enough for Hel to slip under the next Valkyrie.

"Sorry but I'm on my way to take this plate to the Gods table. The Greek ones tend to get fussy."

The first Valkyrie sighed and marched off but stopped. Her shoe felt different. She lifted up her foot to inspect the sole that now had holes rotted out from it.

Balder emptied the trash as quickly and properly as he could but it wasn't long before his arm was grabbed, "There you are! We can't have a feast without you babe!" Balder whirled around to see Hermod's blue face. "Oh! Hermod! I- I was just helping out! I have some other thing to do-"

"Don't be shy buddy; We got to celebrate your first victory in a long time."

Balder frowned and looked to the side. "Well, I just don't feel right about that one time."

"This time is different, come on." Balder could not resist being dragged off by the small blue messenger.

He found himself sitting at the same table next to his mother.

"I'm so proud of you Balder!" Frigga exclaimed and threw her deep green arms around Balder. "Hermod, if you could, find Tyr. He needs to be here as well."

Hermod disappeared as soon after to find Balder's brother.

Balder looked up from his food and then up across from him, where Herc, his parents sat across. His eyes widened. What was he doing here when he could be saving hid friend from killing his other friends!?

Hercules caught Balder's terrified look and that seemed to solidify his assumptions that balder had avoided talking to his parents about his brother. Balder waved to Herc nervously as his eyes darted around. He caught sight of something bumping the table of gifts that sat right behind Herc. He stared over Herc's shoulder watching an apple on the table roll on its side revealing a rotten spot.

Herc began to look over his shoulder prompting balder to pipe up. "Have you enjoyed the festival so far?"

"You mean the festival that I was enjoying until very recently had to fight a bunch of draugers to stop them from coming to the surface and wreaking havoc?"

"Uh… Yeah." Balder twiddled his thumbs and then sheepishly asked, "Having fun?"

"Sure." Herc said, deadpan. It was crystal clear that Balder had yet to talk to his parents about the events after he was told to speak to him. Perhaps Balder truly had a long way to go before becoming the God of Heroes.

"So where's your brother?" Herc asked motioning to the empty seat next to Balder.

"Oh! I haven't seen him… Since we had an argument."

"An argument?" Frigga spoke up glancing to Balder, "Again? What is it about this time? Is he eating the apples?" Her voice dipped with motherly concern.

"Oh no! He- I just didn't get to give him his apple yet, Idun told me to give it to him."

"Where is your brother? He should be here..," Frigga asked Balder.

"Which one? Tyr?"

"Tyr's in the Underworld." Odin answered before turning to Zeus, "So how's your bridge game? Up for a round after-"

"What is he doing in the underworld!?" Frigga restrained herself from yelling but her voice cut through the noisy festival of food. The hall fell to a nervous silence and then resumed once again as patrons quickly asked each other about their wives and kids or even the weather.

"I thought the underworld was a no-go zone?" Hera asked brushing back her hair.

Frigga's face turned to Odin looking non-plussed.

Odin sighed, his shoulders sagging a bit, "It is. Tyr's in there, finding himself, He'll be fine dear."

"But what is this about the no-go zone?" Herc asked staring right ahead at Balder looking very disappointed at him.

Balder flashed a sheepish shrug. His eyes landed back into the background spotting something move behind the banner sitting behind the Greek visitors. Balder's jaw dropped, which prompted the hero to look behind him. Balder had to think fast, his attention tuned to the arguing adults and the words "Why does Tyr get to go? I thought it was too dangerous for me to go-"

Odin feeling the change of subject of would better suit him and his pantheon, he answered back, "Yet you dip in and out anyways."

"Wait- You know about that?"

Frigga's jaw took its turn to drop, "Why are two of my sons going to the underworld!?"

"Well- I just-" Balder's eyes flickered back to Herc and then back up to the roof. There he spotted Hel crawling her way up the support beam and positioning herself above Odin and Frigga. He knew when she was getting ready to pounce and he didn't need to see her reach for her knife to know it. "Don't!" He yelled, all eyes fell on him. Even Hel's eyes fell onto him. He almost blew her cover. Now that she was in the open and vulnerable, she knew she couldn't stay there and expect to not get caught. She crawled towards the beam closest to Balder.

"I don't want Hodor to get himself in trouble." Balder was suddenly the center of attention and he was nearly standing from his seat. "I-" He began nervously, his hands shaking. He sat back down. He had to hold their attention and persuade his friend to not kill everyone she could and eventually get into trouble. "Please don't get Mad but- I've been going in and out of the underworld- Hodor keeps going down there and causing problems and I know it's bad but he's just trying to prove that he's capable of being recognized."

He felt someone across from him glaring at him. He looked up to see the guest Zeus look at him darkly. Little did he know about the thunder god across from him was still recovering from bad blood between him and his brother. Balder fell into anxious silence that was only exacerbated by the sound of claws on wood right behind him.

"Listen." He pointed at Balder, "You are not responsible for your brother's failings! You can't keep giving him a pass and covering for him when he keeps messing things up for others!"

"Honey…" Hera warned her husband.

Herc looked through all the deities present and had a feeling this could not end well for anyone.

"Father, you have a point, but can we just hear him out?"

"Just whose side are you on anyways?"

"Dear, he's just trying to mediate before-"

"Well, sometimes people do wrong things for reasons, or because they're hurt or scared and making it worse isn't going to make it better." Balder insisted.

"Balder, don't interrupt our guests." Odin looked sternly upon his son.

"Oh- Right, I'm sorry sir." Balder looked down and turning pink with embarrassment and pushed the food on his plate around. He could feel a chill creep over his shoulder.

He heard a being whispering into his ear, Balder stayed still keeping his eyes on his food and listened. _"What's the big deal? You could have blown my cover!"_ It was Hel, who had managed to creep down the beam positioned behind him and slinked her way to his back unnoticed.

"This kind of behavior just keeps getting worse," Zeus continued pointing towards Balder, "Hades was always up to trouble! From sending the river Styx through the city of Athens to throwing a pool party and erasing everyone's memory! And I may have thrown a few thunderbolts a him every now and then but I still covered for him!" The thunder god's voice began to raise.

" _Whaaaaat?"_ Balder heard by his ear again _, "How do you run a river through an overworld city?"_ Oh that was just great. Just the thing he needed was for her to get any more ideas. He frowned and mumbled, "Stop it." It was just inaudible. He had learned to keep his voice very low from spending his time with his troublesome friend's realm.

The king of the gods continued his voice getting more thunderous, "And what did I get in the end? He started a coup recruiting titans to attack Olympus and imprison every god there! The rest of the world was on fire and in ruins! If it wasn't for Hercules- He looked down onto his son who was now glancing sideways feeling a little embarrassed. His father sure knew how to escalate things and to be honest this wasn't how he hoped things would end up.

"Father- I think we are getting off track-" Hercules looked across to Balder and his downward glance, interpreting it as a defeated look. He looked to his mother for assistance.

"Dear- That was years ago! It's old news, things are better now." She interjected and casted an apologetic look to Frigga who was still lividly staring a hole into the side of Odin's head.

Balder's blue eyes darted between Hera and Hercules; his mind focusing on Hera's words that _things got better._ He was doing his best to ignore Hel's hissing laughter in his ear. _"This Hades guy sound like a complete badass. Smashing the system, overthrowing the tyrants, and just causing all sorts of hilarious crimes! This guy is great!"_ Balder waved his hand behind him, trying to swipe at her to stop.

"But things got better!" Balder insisted, his voice carrying hope. "Something changed; something had to happen to make it get better,"

"That change was consequences. Change only happened after we applied consequences!" Zues argued.

At this point, Hercules had just decided, that along with every one of his bull headed father's arguments and tantrums, to stay out of it and just be there in case things got too out of control. This food was nice. Sausages and cabbage in vinegar. Who would have thought? He really wished he could have sat with the other mortals, at least a conversation with Phil and Icarus would have been much nicer.

" _Or how he got what he wanted!"_ Hel hissed angrily.

"No, that's not right." Balder looked down, meaning his words to reach his friend.

"Excuse me?" Zeus said, his fists clenching.

"Balder." Odin sounded very stern, while doing his best to pretend that because Frigga was on the side of his blind eye, he could not see her glaring daggers at him. "Are you saying it's not right to apply consequences to your brother for causing so much trouble?"

"No- I mean- I'm not advocating for him to do whatever he wants- But maybe if we just helped Hodor out, and made him feel like he mattered here, he would stop." He had to remain on topic otherwise they would be found out.

"Balder, we've been through this. Your brother is blind; he is completely defenseless and would be a danger to himself! We can't let him have a purpose or he will end up getting hurt!" Frigga finally cut into the conversation. "And letting him run wild in the underworld is utterly irresponsible of you! And-" She turned her head to her husband, "None of my sons should be running around there ever. At all!"

" _Yeah Balder, you should tell your lousy brother to stay out of my way and go make people miserable up here instead!"_

Hel's input was not helping him in the slightest. He momentarily lost his calm and mumbled down to her, "Shut up."

"Excuuuse me young man?" His mom heard that. All moms had the power to hear the potential back sass of their children and Frigga was like a super mom.

"Nothing! I wasn't. I didn't mean!" Balder stammered out, his face going pink his day could not get any worse for him.

" _Alright teenage rebellion!"_ Hel really knew how to egg things on, and also make things worse for herself.

At that point all of the adults were very upset with him. "He gets this from you, you know!" Frigga shot back at Odin.

"Dear! This has gone far enough. You're embarrassing all of us. This was not supposed to go this way. We were supposed to have a nice weekend, not pick a fight with our friend's son!" Hera also glared u at her husband.

Things were quickly brewing into a fight and this is not want Balder ever wanted. Fights and arguments always made him anxious. This wasn't supposed to be this way. The young god pushed his plate of food away from him and crossed his arms over his chest.

" _If you won't eat it, I will. This is getting pretty entertaining."_ His friend was beginning to get on his last nerve.

"Will you just go home?" He hissed, looking over his shoulder to the direction of his friend.

" _Well I would, but somebody's parents went made sure I couldn't."_ Hel grumbled reminding him just whose fault all of this truly was.

He had to find a way to at least distract her or make her want to go back into the underworld. Anything to get them both out of this mess, but she was not easy to reason with. "What do you want?"

" _To slaughter your entire family or…"_ She had to think of something else that was impossible for him to agree to. _"To hear you cuss."_ Balder was too good of a guy to even cuss. She even believed it might be physically impossible for him to do it.

"Fine." She might not have been easy to reason with but was easy to distract and aim at something else.

The response caught Hel completely off guard. There was no way he would… Could he? The image of his cute face scrunching up as he tried to cuss was too much to pass up. She could always murder his entire family some other time, but hearing him cuss was not to be passed up! _"Then cuss already! What will your first cuss even be?"_ She mumbled on.

"Go home!" Balder mumbled maybe a little louder, enough so that the others could kind of hear him.

" _Ugh fine… But remember you owe me a cuss."_ Hel mumbled rather grumpily and crawled back up the beam with the same amount of stealth she used before. She wouldn't be taking out any vengeance tonight. Stupid, no-good goody two-shoes friend.

"Excuse me?" His mother heard that one of course. She was at her wits end with Balder who was normally so well mannered.

"I said I was going home. I'm sorry that I caused such a scene and I am especially sorry for insulting our guests and causing so much trouble. I'm sorry for everything. " Balder stood up, his cheeks with embarrassment and head down. He hoped everyone would buy it. Sometimes he wondered why he was still friends with someone that wanted to kill his entire family, or continued to have hope that one day she will change. And maybe that day was not today but it could be one day.

"I'm glad that you apologized for your actions today Balder." Frigga began sternly, taking control of the situation since Odin seemed far too lenient. "But you need to face consequences." She nodded to her guests.

"When you see your brother, you tell him that the two of you are grounded for the next fifty years. There will be no unapproved visits anywhere outside of Asgard, after training and chores, you'll both go straight to your rooms, and furthermore, you'll be helping Eir, Freyr and Freya fix all the damage you two have been causing. Honestly, I expected more out of you Balder, you're supposed to be the god of heroes and light and you can't behave like this."

Balder's shoulders slumped and he stared at his fingers that dug in to the table Now what was he going to do? How was he even to stop his brother or let alone Hel? He very well could not break the rules. "Yes ma'am." He mumbled and looked up to his guess. From behind him, he could see Hel slither down from the support beams onto the table. She stopped from sneaking away to pick up more food and stuff it into her pockets. There was concern that she was going to get caught. She only stopped when she looked up and saw a Valkyrie beginning to return. She had to hide quick and the nearest hiding place was some golden jar decorated with a lid decorated with leaves and fruit. Any hiding spot is a good hiding spot if you're desperate enough. Her body squeezed into it. Balder witnessed all of this but could not say anything. He knew that jar was meant as a gift to Hercules but what could he do?

Maybe, this can be a good thing. She can be in a different environment with someone else, he trusted to be a good, and compassionate person to keep her out of trouble. Maybe this could be a good experience for her, and she could have the opportunities often denied to her. He chose to remain silent. Balder disappeared with a gentle beam of light to head into his room.

"With that said, Hercules," Odin began I want to thank you, for everything you have done here, and I know it doesn't seem much, but you also stopped Ragnarok from happening and we never got a chance to thank you for that." Odin waved to the Valkyrie behind them who took it as her cue to grab the jar on the table. "So we would like to give you a small token of thanks, something that Freya thought up." The Valkyrie presented the jar to Hercules.

"It's a jar of bounty, although this gift is small in terms of what you have done for us, we figured you will put this to the best use." Odin's single eye fell onto the jar almost as if he could stare right into it. Sometimes there were blind spots in his vision, but maybe if h stared at all the things around the blind spots, he could get an idea of what was happening around them. "This jar, will provide an endless bounty of food, both grown and cooked, although depending on whether you enjoy our native dishes could be something entirely. You only need to reach into it-" He paused.

"Oh, Brunhilde, the jar is missing its seal. We wouldn't want it to fall over in our guests room and flood him in food now would we?" Odin pointed out with a very, very small hint of a smile. Brunhilde was quick to conjure up some clasps to hold down the lid before handing it to Hercules.

"Oh, thank you very much." The demi-god was quick to put down his food that minutes ago were much more interesting than the awkward argument that had broken out between the deities. "I, don't know what to say other than that." Or even what to do with this gift. Meg's food was perfectly fine for him, but maybe if there ever was some sort of famine in Thebes, gods forbid, he could help out his community. "Actually, I think I know just what to do with this. And thank you for this wonderful opportunity to meet your family and enjoy this festival."

"Speaking of which-" Hera had cut in, "We meant no harm in interrupting this dinner and starting a _debate_ with your son-" She shot a look at her husband.

"Oh no, it's something that needed to be addressed," Frigga insisted, her blood pressure finally settling down. "I'm just sorry that you had to be a part of it. Well anyways, would any of you like desert? I have prepared apple strudel!"

* * *

And then events continued on merrily into the night as it should have. Once Herc was able to regroup with his friends in the guest rooms, he explained the situation

"And so the entire time, Balder was trying to cover for his brother, and I can see why he would do it, but I think the kid really needs help in how to be a better hero about it." Herc sat on the edge of his bed.

"Don't look at me kid, I'm retired. I went and achieved my 'that's Phil's boy dream', and I am happy with that." Phil mumbled grumpily while lying down on his bed across the room. He had hoped at least one of the women would go home with him but for some reason a lot of people tried to speak Finnish at him and it just got extremely frustrating for him.

"That's not what I meant…"

"So, what, do you want to mentor him or something?" Phil rolled over in his bed pulling the blankets over his head. Once the kid got worrying about something, nothing ever seemed to stop him. He knew he was going to have to deal with this for the entire weekend.

"Well, no but- I don't know. Maybe that would be good for him. Come to think of it, there's a lot of kids that want to be heroes now, and this kid in particular is apparently destined to be the god of heroes and he doesn't quite know what he's doing."

"He's gonna have to figure it out himself. It's what I did."

"But wasn't that hard? Doesn't it cause some issues with figuring out how to train people into being the best heroes?"

"No! Because I am the best-" The old satyr sat up in his bed and pointed at Herc accusingly, "And don't you forget it!"

"Oh! Oh oh oh oh oh!" Icarus spoke up, turning from his current project of working on the broken device that Ivaldi gave him. "What if you created a school, for heroes! Like an academy!"

"Ha! Yeah like that would happen!" Phil laughed and waved the brain-fried-by-the-sun human off, but that got his gears turning. He stroked his beard, "Well actually now that you mention it, I did want to start some kind of standards based on my regiment... Actually that's not a bad idea. Phil's Academy for Heroes!"

"The name could use a bit of work." Hercules chuckled, but now they were getting somewhere. A way for him to retire from the hero business but still make continue to make a contribution to the world. "We could even include students from all over the world."

"That's right! Now you're thinking kid!" Phil leapt from his bed and pushed Icarus out of his desk, even shoving the clock aside. His mind was churning out ideas, He could get funding. He could get paid in… Tuition! And even supply the materials, for a small price of course. The three of them continued to brainstorm into the night, and even every now and then during the weekend as they continued to enjoy the festival. Over all it was the most productive Guy's Weekend any of them have ever experienced and none of them could wait to get home and begin their plans.

The jar that they had completely forgotten about sat with their stuff and every now and then would give a little shake but ultimately got nowhere.

* * *

Okay, I'm so sorry for the long period in between this chapter. I had a hard time writing this because it I very dialogue heavy and I had to juggle a lot of characters in the scene. Over all it was learning experience that I will continue to improve. I am currently working on a few projects such as a youtube channel of me making art and so that may contribute to some slow chapters, but I will not go on a hiatus any time soon.

Shout out to Angel of Hunky-Doryness for the very kind shoutout she gave me for my fanfiction. That was really kind of you and am glad that you enjoy my fic that much. It really encourages me to see that kind of support.

There are absolutely a lot of secrets in the Norse Pantheon, and I hope that I can weave them well into the story as well as the entire world of the Norse underworld. I am having a lot of fun doing some world building here for when they return, you know…. After the shenaniganza that will happen in Greece.

* * *

Tyr- there are conflicting stories, like most stories that were oral traditions hundreds of years before being written down, had different origins. One origin is that he is the son of Odin, another is that he is actually the son of frost giants, one of which had many heads but had a killer keg of mead, and another is that he and Odin are one in the same. I decided to go with him being the biological child of Odin that was later swapped and adopted as a baby, similar to how many trolls and changelings work.


	7. What the?

The trip came to an eventual graceful end. The three friends, bid farewell to their new acquaintances and flew home, Hercules dropped off Icarus first who still somehow managed to fiddle with the little clockwork device even while on horseback, and next was Phil, dropping the old goat home and helping him unload some of his new weapon purchases. When Herc arrived at his parent's house, No sooner than he hopped off of Pegasus, he was greeted by a tackle to his legs by Hyllus. Hyllus was just a small boy but even he had inherited just some of his strength and the sudden jerk to his legs caused the demigod to catch his balance and throwing up his injured arm. "Woah- Hyllus, what have I said about tackling people in a hug?" He winced at his shoulder and massaged it, feeling a sharp pain where he was fighting the infection. Usually his half god genetics allowed him to fight off illnesses rather easily but this was different.

"What did you do to your arm?" He heard from his wife who stood behind him, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Uh, well I had a bit of-" Herc passed to scoop up his son with one arm, "A bit of a run in- With a monster. Kind of?" He smiled a sheepish smile at his wife.

She rolled her eyes and breathed through her nose, deciding now was not the time to start a discussion with him. "You can tell me more about it after dinner." Meg swept her arms around her husband's neck for a tight hug. "We missed you."

"It's only been three days." Herc mumbled.

"But it seemed like foreeeeever!" Hyllus whined, also hugging his dad's head. From his spot on Herc's shoulder he spotted something moving in the saddlebag that sat on Pegasus. He wrinkled his nose and asked, "What's that?"

Her released his wife from the hug and turned to the bag, "Oh, souvenirs."

"Did you get me something?"

"Yeah, but you won't get it till we get home." Herc answered.

"And have dinner with your grandparents." Meg pulled Hyllus down from his spot and stood him on the ground. She casted a look over her shoulder towards Hercules, "Dinner is almost done by the way."

He followed them up towards his parents' house. The house was filled with voices and laughter all the way into the night. By the time they headed home it was already about time for Hyllus to go to bed,

"But you haven't told me about the monster you fought yet, or even given me my present." Hyllus complained as he stepped into the palace like villa.

Herc grimaced and looked down towards Meg who only shot him a glanced that said you got yourself in this mess buddy. Herc took a deep sigh and headed into the kitchen placing the bags he was carrying onto the ground. "Well okay, I'll give you the gift once I find it." Herc dug through his bag and pulled out the jar of bounty and placed it on the kitchen table before digging out more objects, placing each one on the kitchen table as Meg quickly eliminated the mess by placing things where they belonged.

"And then it's bedtime." Meg eyed one small jar that contained some sort of liquid and had a small scroll attached to it. "What's this?"

"It's for the bite." Herc mumbled and turned to take it from his wife but it was kept out of his hands by her.

"After Hyllus is in bed, we're going to need to talk." She handed the bottle to Herc.

Meanwhile Hyllus' eyes fell onto the jar that had some kind of seals on it. The jar gave a slight wobble that anyone could have attributed to a slight shaking of the table. The young boy took it into his hands and undid the seals.

It was cramped in there and although Hel could shape her body to all manner of shapes and sizes like her father, she really rather not conform her to some shapes for too long. Things got achy. With no point of reference for time, she could not tell how long it had been, but it seemed to have gone on far enough. If she was able to move just a bit more, she would have been able to break out of the jar herself, or that is what she told herself. A brush of fresh air filtered into the space of the jar was enough to cause her to stir more, but the fresh air was quickly replaced by some other invading force.

Hyllus reached into the jar, smelling something sickening sweet coming from it, and being a little kid, he just had to know what was inside it. He felt something extremely cold, like his hand was reaching into freezing water. "Huh?" He asked.

"Ugh what's that smell?" Meg asked whirling around looking for the culprit. She was certain she made sure to toss out any food that could go bad before she stayed over at her in-law's. Instead she saw Hyllus reaching into a jar, "Hyllus, put that down and get ready for bed,"

Hyllus quickly retracted his arm just as Hel was making up her mind to bite off the hand that was grabbing at her. He quickly tried to close the seal but did so only partly before the jar was snatched from Herc.

"Woah- Hyllus, that's not your present. Your present is here," Her placed the jar onto the counter top and handed to Hyllus instead a small leather helmet, shaped like one of the Norsemen's helmets.

"What is that?" Meg's concern could hardly be contained.

"Oh that's the Jar of bounty that Odin and Frigga gave me, after taking care of the problem in their underworld- well actually more of like a thank you gift for stopping Ragnarok but also the other thing." Herc looked towards Meg who had one eyebrow raised far up into her hairline.

"It's kind of like a cornucopia thing but maybe baked goods and cooked meats. Actually, I didn't really ask or even try it out."

"I was talking about the helmet, you know, after we talked about this… Hyllus, dear, please get ready for bed. You got to get ready for school tomorrow."

Hyllus could tell his parents were going to have another discussion again. It always seemed to revolve around his dad's job or encouragement when he considered the hero-ing career. It made him uneasy and he could not quite articulate why. He hated to see his parents in disagreement but thankfully their discussions never reached above inside voice volumes. "Ok mom." Hyllus mumbled, his eyes landing on the jar of plenty again. Although he had dinner and desert, the thought of snacks has entered him mind and reminded him that he was not entirely full or bloated of food yet. He turned his back to them, taking off his helmet and waited until both of their attentions were turned towards each other. At the right time, Hyllus snatched the jar and placed it under his helmet before heading upstairs to his bedroom.

Content with their son obediently heading up stairs, the two adults decided to head into the living room. Meg sat on the sloped end of the Kline and patted the spot next to her. Hercules sat down but angled himself to face her, his hands clasped into his lap.

"Okay, you have my attention now. What is on your mind?" He asked. The two never really needed to argue with each other, maybe a few snarky jokes back and forth but that was the extent. He never felt the need to put Megara down or even raise his voice to her, she was a wonderful listener and an even better friend.

Meg pulled her legs onto the Kline and turned to face him, her eyes cast down onto her hands.

"Okay, here it goes, and mind you, this is not an attack on your choice of career and I know we've had this discussion enough times but… I'm worried about you and you Heroing and the effect it has on Hyllus."

Herc took a deep breath and nodded silently.

"I'm worried about your safety and his, but most of all, I'm afraid that he thinks this is the only path for him. I'm proud of you and what you do, and the hope and light you inspire in others is, well, it's what you do best, and I love you for it. Hyllus like all other kids across Greece looks up to you but this has been a part of his life since the moment he was born, but I can't even recall him showing any other interest." Her fingers began to entangle themselves but stopped the moment Herc's own hand joined her hands. Her eyes lifted up to meet his and for a moment they shared a small moment of silent understanding.

"I'm glad you brought this up, and please continue."

* * *

Upstairs, Hyllus had washed his face and picked up his toys, and by that it was more of a splash water onto his face and shove his toys under his bed. He hurriedly sat on his bed and undid one of the seals but paused when he saw the jar had something gooey already bubbling out. Was this what people from far away eat? If so, then he was glad to be Greek. The sudden hunger he had faded rather quickly but the emptiness was replaced with curiosity. There was a moment of pause for him as he began to think about his actions very carefully. He was sitting on the edge of his bed and getting this stuff on his bed would make both of his parents upset. Hyllus scrambled to the floor, sitting with his legs crossed. Now he could open it up in relative safety.

He took the top off and sat it onto the floor next to him, but what he saw inside the jar instead was a red eye staring back at him. He screamed and threw the jar across the room.

The sound of distressed screams and things being knocked around shook the two adults from their places on the Kline. They two of them bolted upstairs, Hercules being the first to reach the door. He was immediately greeted with Hyllus throwing himself at his father's legs.

"Monster! There's a monster under my bed!"

Herc's eyes scanned the room, spotting the tumbled food contents of the jar of bounty, knocked over action figures from his shelf, and a candle that was knocked over, dripping wax all over the floor. He pushed past his son to quickly scoop up the candle. Meg scooped Hyllus up who threw his arms around her shoulders and gave her a tight squeeze. She watched her husband scan the room and then bent down to pick up Hyllus. She frowned at the mess made.

"Didn't I tell you to clean your room?" She said with the tone of a mother that knew her child was doing something they shouldn't have. Hyllus leaned back in her arms and glanced over his shoulder at his father who was now checking under the bed.

"I- I was! I did clean it!"

His father pulled out a small pile of toys in front of him. There was a moment of pause from the demi-god as he felt suddenly cold. He stood up and looked at the open window over Hyllus' bed and shut it.

"Well I found your monster." Herc said over his shoulder in a half joking manner.

"No there was one! I promise! It was- It was in the jar!"

"The jar you were not supposed to bring up here in the first place." Meg scolded and set Hyllus down. "You're going to clean up the mess you made and get ready for bed. You have school tomorrow morning." Hyllus already had a vivid imagination from the stories he heard about monsters and the comic scrolls he was reading, but it seemed like now he was moving into that phase of believing there were monsters hidden around every corner.

"But!-"

"Don't argue with her, please Hyllus and come help me clean up this mess." Herc scooped up the jar and closed the lid before it could flood his home with any more food. Cabbages, wurst, pork and some kind of slimy gravy was all over the place.

Hyllus' shoulders slumped and he went to help his father. How did he not see the monster under his bed? It was clearly there! He saw it crawl under as soon as the door opened. But if his father didn't see it, then where could it have gone, and was it all just his imagination? Hyllus shook his head. As his father scooped up the rest of the food, and his mother mopped up the mess, he cleaned up his toys properly placing them where they belonged, not even daring to take a peek under his bed. It took them about half an hour to get the mess cleaned up, and another ten minutes of being lectured on not sneaking food into his bed, how taking without asking was stealing, and how wrong it was to lie.

Underneath the bed, Hel was pressed as small as she could, hiding behind the toys, listening to the conversation above and rolling her eyes so hard that it was amazing no one could hear them bouncing around her skull.

Meg and Herc tucked Hyllus in and headed out the door with the candle.

Wait!" Hyllus called out, making his father pause.

"Yes?"

"Can you leave the light here?"

Herc gave a small smile and sat the candle on the dresser, "Okay buddy, just don't stay up all night."

"Good night, love you."

"Love you too." Both Herc and Meg said, not meaning to say it at the same time but both silently acknowledging it with their own smiles to each other. With the door closed behind them, they headed back down stairs.

"So you going to tell me what happened to your arm?"

"Yeah, so, get this, there's this young god named Balder, and he's been trying to cover for his brother who keeps making trouble in the underworld, and they have these things called Drauger.."

Once their voices faded away, Hyllus sat up and waited with nervous anticipation, his fingers gripping his pillow tightly, reading his entire body to swing if he needed to. Minutes passed and nothing stirred under his bed. The child relaxed, wondering if maybe he did just imagine it all. He pushed off the covers and crawled to the edge of his bed to peek under his bed. What he saw was just a few toys shoved under his bed that they missed, and…. Something moving towards the bottom of his bed and forming into a tall humanoid shape.

Hyllus screamed and tossed his pillow at it.

Hel was just popping things back into place after being cramped for so long until she felt something bounce off her back. This thing again. She turned around to face the boy with a very annoyed glare. "Go to sleep." She hissed at him.

Instead she got more screaming and things being tossed at her.

* * *

Downstairs, Herc was about a third of the way through explaining the bite he received from the "drauger" and how the goddess Eir had acted very shifty when pressed for answers while Meg swapped out the bandages. Her eyes widened at the wound.

"Are you sure this is a run of the mill infection?" The wound was only three days old, but it looked much worse like there was difficulty in healing.

"Well Eir said I should be fine as long as I drink that Lyfjaberg water… There should be some more of it on the counter." His mind returned to the oddness of that entire situation but were immediately interrupted by Hyllus' screaming and the sound of things being thrown again. Herc groaned and stood up from his seat. "I'll take care of it."

The demi-god walked back up the stairs and opened the door to his son's room, who was now standing on his bed, his toys strewn back on the floor, now along with the pillows. "Hyllus."

"The monster is in my closet now! It's in my closet! It told me to go to sleep!"

"Hyllus.. There is no monster. Clean this up, I'll look into your closet and show you there is no monster, and then you will go to bed."

Herc walked up to the closet and opened it with his uninjured arm. Hyllus' eyes fell onto the empty closet and then his father's injured shoulder. It looked like it hurt real bad. His father was always there to keep him and his mother safe and now he was injured and defending him against this terrible being that hid in his closet. Hyllus felt a deep responsibility to in turn take care of his parents should anything happen to them.

"Look," Herc turned to him and waved a hand to the very tall closet that was full of clothes. "Nothing in here, except your stuff."

Hyllus' eyes welled up with tears. How could this happen again? How come no one else but him could see this being? "No, it gets real, real small and then it grows really big. And it-"

"Hyllus, there's nothing in here, I promise you, you will be just fine, so please just get to bed."

Hyllus' shoulders dipped, realizing that no one was going to believe him. This monster was just far too crafty. He had to think on his feet, his eyes darting around for some plan and they landed on his helmet that now sat on his bedpost and he got an idea. "Wait! I forgot!" He headed for the door, grabbing his satchel, "I forgot to pack my homework!" Hyllus rationalized this as technically true. Herc's shoulders drooped as he stared half lidded at his child.

"Alright. Go on and get it, and then I want you to go to bed."

Hel from her position, holding herself at the ceiling of the closet, stretched out just enough to keep herself from succumbing to gravity. She was getting real tired of hiding in cramped places and half the mind to just launch herself at this Greece guy and deliver another bite to him. But where was she? Was that going to cause enough ruckus to attract the attention of the gods? Were there gods around? As Herc shut the door to the closet, she was left there wondering exactly how long she had been in that jar.

When stepped out of the room to call back down to Hyllus, "You got five minutes-" Before he could even finish his sentence Hyllus was right in front of him with his bag over his shoulder and held behind him.

"Got it!"

"Okay." Herc's eyebrows pressed together, wondering if maybe, just maybe he did inherit some of his abilities after all. Hyllus scooted by his father all the while maintaining his back to his father.

"Okay. I'm going to bed now. I'll see you in the morning, so, I'll be just backing up into my bed-" Hyllus said loudly to disguise the sound of something dragging across the floor behind him.

"And sleep with your school bag?"

"And sleep with my school bag." Hyllus sat down onto his bed and pulled his blankets over himself. "Education is very important. I feel like if I get a good start in the morning, it will really start my school day just right."

Herc squinted his eyes at his son but honestly never had much of a reason to think Hyllus was really up to anything. Maybe the occasional kid shenanigans, but with all due respect, he was a good kid. He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling oddly cold. "Okay. Go to bed, I don't want to have to come up here again." He warned.

"Don't worry, I'll be sound asleep, Uh- Good night dad!"

"Good night." He said with his voice holding a little annoyance. The door slammed shut.

Hyllus waited and listened as he heard his father's steps go down the stairs and when he thought it was safe, he climbed out of bed, put his helmet on and tied a pillow around his abdomen. The final step to doing battle with the monster in his closet was to pull out a rather good sized club he borrowed from his father's trophy room.

Just as Hel heard things quiet down, she lowered herself from the ceiling and slowly pushed open the door only to be greeted with a pint sized hero attempting to heft a club almost as big as him over his shoulder. She stared at him in silence for two second, her mask obfuscating her attempt to not laugh. "That's adorable." Hyllus faced with the smiling monster tried to summon up all the strength he could have in him to lift the club but the monster reached forward, causing him to panic. He strained further as the hand rested on his head and he screamed as the helmet was turned to face the opposite way.

* * *

Downstairs, Hercules groaned into his hand as he heard the yelling upstairs and a loud thump across the floor. Meg flopped the roll of clean bandages onto the table and stood up. "It's my turn." She marched upstairs with a fury. The door to Hyllus' room flew open, giving Hel just enough time to scramble up the ceiling. All Meg could see was her son on his back and the club next to him. She went over to him, to pick him off the floor, snatching the pillow wrapped around his body

"That's it, Hyllus, no more playing, no more games, you are going to bed and-" Her eyes traced their way top the club next to him and then to the large dent made in the floor. "What is this? Why do you have this?"

"The monster! I was trying to fight it cause dad's hurt and-" Hyllus spat out while taking off the leather helmet.

"Hyllus, there is no monster!" Meg raised her voice, causing the child before her to quiet down, his voice unable to speak up now. They didn't believe him.

Meg rubbed her face and groaned, her hands eventually rubbed her shoulders for warmth. Winter seemed to be on the march a little early this year. "What am I going to do with you?" She asked and then called out to her husband, "Herc! Can you come get this? It seems like your son decided to go on adventures in the closet!" Meg turned to her son whose head was dropped down and clenching the helmet in his arms. She held out her hands, and waited till once the helmet was in her hands to announce "Alright hand it over. You'll get it back once your grounding has been over"

"But mom!"

"No buts, get in bed, and I don't want to hear another peep out of you or another three days will be added."

Hyllus dragged his feet to his bed, just as his father came into his room and picked up the club. He curled up in his bed, turning his back to his parents that blew out the candle in his room and exited the room shutting the door. Hyllus was all alone in the darkness save for the moonlight that trickled through the slats in his window. His parents didn't believe him and now he was certain the monster was going to eat him. He heard the door to his closet creak open and the very gentle almost silent footsteps creep out into his room. The room felt cold, and from the feel and sound of it, it seemed like the being was wandering around.

Hel decided to use the time outside of the constant hiding inside cramped spaces to stretch her legs, and back and arms. She cracked her neck and felt relief surged through her body. Where was she? She quietly strolled around the room, most of the furniture and overall construction of the room seemed very different. If she had to place herself in a space, maybe she was on midgard. But that couldn't be right. There was no way she could be on midgard, that would mean she got taken to midgard and no one would ever take her there. For so long she had been stuck in the underworld trying everything she could get to the surface, and was always stopped by magical barriers, valkyries or gods getting in her way. She couldn't even get herself a pass-portal from the dwarves! Something about being black-listed. She had no idea why and couldn't coerce and answer from them or their ridiculously bureaucratic counsel no matter what she tried.

The sniffling and crying coming from the kid in the same room as her was beginning to get on her nerves. "Will you be quiet?" She hissed at him. Instead Hyllus only cried more, sending Hel into a light panic. She didn't need that Grease guy to come back in for round two. "Hey! Seriously It's not like you really have anything to really cry about!" She whispered more, moving over to Hyllus.

"I don't want to be eaten alive" Hyllus whimpered, pulling the covers over his head.

"Eat you?" Well, to be fair, it's not like people were off the menu for her, they just weren't usually on the menu either. "I'm not going to eat you alive. That's dumb, and how you get things crawling back out which is super annoying."

Needless to say, her words were of no help at all.

Hyllus' eyes widened, and his whimpering grew louder almost breaking out into a cry.

"Nonono! Look, I'm not gonna eat ya, just cut your crying, geeze." Her eyes flickered to the slats in the window, spotting something massive and bright through them. She sidestepped to the side of the window, avoiding the light.

Hyllus poked his head out from his blanket and watched the beings movements. This so called monster was actually very strange now that he thought about it. The way she slowly reached for the slats to peek out through them, even squint made him seriously question why he was even frightened of the monster in the first place. Maybe it was the unnerving smiling mask it wore. The masked being glanced at him making Hyllus quickly lie back down and cover his head with the blankets. Now that she was comfortable with his eyes hidden, she was able to slide of her mask and peek through the slats a little better. He could hear the slats being forced opened and could feel the much larger being climbing up onto the foot of his bed. He dared to peek out and from what he could see the mask had been lifted off the beings far. Surprisingly the left side of the being's face was not as scary as he thought. The monster even looked fairly normal save for the blue skin and pointed ears that seemed to stick up and face towards the window.

She squinted at the light of the moonlight but she could not figure out what she was looking at. It was dark out there but with the small bits of light here and there, which she could only assume were glow worms or even some glowing rocks or fungus. But then that would imply some kind of ceiling and did Midgard have a ceiling? And what were those structures further away with some warm glowing light? The structures reminded her of cities settled by elves, dwarves and the undead but these had a different shape to them. Her ear swiveled around as she heard the small human speaking up.

"What's the matter? Never seen a moon before?"

She whirled her head around forgetting to pull down her mask for just a moment, giving Hyllus the shock of seeing a half decomposed face, sending him back under the covers. Hel pulled the mask down over her face. "Geeze, warn me next time you look at me." She hissed. She was left with a reminder that there was a thing called a moon. Now she could remember it. Dark and quiet nights in the woods, being carried in her mom's arms and being urged to stay silent and keeping track of its path across the sky.

That one memory triggered another, reminding her of the bright blue sky. Her eyes glossed over with a far away look. Her mind was flooded with a surge of emotion. Her throat tightened as she felt a surge of fear and anger, and the familiar sensation of the left side of her skin burning.

Hyllus peaked out from his covers as the monster had fallen silent, he felt extremely cold even under his blankets and all he could see was the stillness of the being squatting on his bed in the dark. His violet eyes fell down to the beings hands that was clenching his bed sheets tightly and something wasn't right. There seemed to be an unnatural weight where the being's hands were, pulling the bed further down, maybe even causing a hole in it.

The child gasped and scooted his way to the furthest corner of his bed, kicking off the sheets. "No please! Stop! I'm sorry." He whined, still being too afraid to call for his parents. Child logic. You cannot reason with it.

Those words echoed in her mind, but they didn't sound quite the same, just enough to snap her out of where ever it was that she was. Hel shook her head, quickly and blinked, bringing herself back to the present. The kid before her was curled up into the far corner of his bed, hiding his face behind his hands and whining. She looked around the room and tilted her head to the side.

"What are you whining about now?" She whispered and looked down to her hand. There seemed to be a hole underneath it. She lifted her hand an inspected it. Hyllus peeked out from his hands at this silly monster that now seemed to be more curious about the hole in the bed that it created.

"How did- You know you got a hole in here right? I thought things were supposed to be nice up here."

The fear that Hyllus had for this monster began to wane. Now that he really examined it, this monster seemed more funny than scary. Aside from the face. "No… I didn't know that." Hyllus played along. "What do you mean by up here?"

Hel picked away at the edge of the hole in the bed. The threads in the fiber had frayed apart and the stuffing of feathers had began to disintegrate. Why did this always seem to happen? And what were these things anyways? Her ears perked back up and she glanced to the human child. "Up here. On the surface. Don't you know anything?"

"I know what a moon is." Hyllus let slip from his lips, the sneer earned him a glare from the masked monster.

She did not appreciate the sass. Actually she was lying to herself, she did appreciate the sass Her arms crossed over her chest and chuffed, "Fair enough. So what's with the moon and where is here?"

"The moon is the Goddess Selene and she drives her chariot across the sky, Duh."

Hel tilted her head to the side yet again. "Really? Did someone else get the job? Ugh, there's no escaping them is there?" There was a bit of disgust in her voice. Just great, she was on the surface and it seemed the gods had multiplied in numbers? How was she going to make a run for it now?

"Where on midgard are we anyways?"

Hyllus had never heard of that word before and asked, "Huh?"

"Ugh! Midgard!" Hel hissed, slapping her forehead, "You know, the land where humans live?! Here?" She pointed down to the ground with both index fingers. "Where in Midgard are we?"

It dawned on Hyllus that despite how scary and big this monster was, it really was clueless and possibly harmless. He was wrong on the harmless. Hel was mostly not harmless "Well, I would tell you but I'm a little hungry still. You know, I basically got grounded when I was in the process of getting a snack." Hyllus crossed his arms over his chest and blinked at Hel's direction.

Is this kid trying to get me to bribe him? This little-

"Alright, well I don't exactly have any food on me and if I did, you wouldn't want it anyways." She shook her head and rubbed her neck. "You know, I could just eat you." She bared her claws over her head.

But Hyllus had a bargaining chip, and like his mother he knew how to bargain and snark like no other. "And I can just not tell you any information at all. And then you eat me, and you still won't get any information."

Hel put her claws away and groaned, "Okay fine. Where do you store your food anyways?"

After patching up and catching up, the two adults downstairs were about to pack up for bed when they heard a door open and slam upstairs. The two of them locked eyes and sighed. Meg made the move to get up again and check the stairs. She looked up the darkened stairwell and called out "Hyllus?" She received no answer. "Hyllus, you better not be-" She heard the slow groaning creek of a door coming from the kitchen. Meg inhaled deeply and rolled her eyes to the top of her head. She had to remind herself that as mad as she was at her son for disobeying her, she could not lose her cool in front of him. She placed the candle in her hand on a dresser and started to carefully tiptoe her way towards the kitchen. Maybe if she spooked her son, it might scare him straight. Megara pressed her back to the wall when she rounded the corner, she saw that the kitchen was completely dark.

And in that darkness was an even darker silhouette of a tall figure.

Meg's heart leaped into her throat and she ran down the hall to get the candle, and bumped into Hercules, eliciting a scream from her.

"Woah! Meg, are you alright? What's the matter? I went up to check on Hyllus-"

"I thought he was in the kitchen!" The words spilled from her mouth, the tone of her voice increasing in urgency.

"He's still in bed when I checked on him." Herc's eyebrows pressed together in confusion as he placed his hands on the shoulders of his wife who seemed to pale.

"There's someone- Something in the kitchen." She whispered.

Herc grabbed the candle from her and turned into the kitchen. In the candle light, he saw no one. Nothing. Just darkness that was parted by the candle light in his hands, revealing the doors to all of the cabinets, cupboards and jars had all been opened. The cold air that he felt in there only made the goosebumps on his skin worse.

"Meg. Did we close the doors on.. Everything? I could have sworn we did,"

Meg crept in and looked around the kitchen. This was beyond bizarre. "We- What is going on here?"

Herc shook his head, "I don't know." He never really experienced anything like this. Could this be some kind of haunting? Why would he be haunted?

Then they heard the door upstairs creak open and then shut. They exchanged looks briefly and headed upstairs. As they both reached the top of the stairs, their steps slowed, both of them trying to make as little noise as possible so they could hear something. Anything. There was only silence, aside from typical sounds that happened around their palace.

"Maybe we…" Herc began.

"Did something follow you home?" Meg whispered back.

"Follow me back?"

"Like a shade, ghost, or something."

"No- Well I don't know. Things aren't supposed to be able to leave or even go into that underworld without help,"

"Ok. I believe you but I don't believe the entire situation."

"So we'll go to bed, and in the morning we'll try and get a hold of a priest, or maybe make a prayer to-"

"Persephone might work."

Herc's eyes rolled upwards and breathed in deeply. The problem was that option could very well welcome somebody else into their lives. "Let's leave that for option omega."

And then they heard Hyllus' voice. The two of them fell silent, listening in. That kid was only pretending to be asleep! Herc's lips pulled into a frown and he moved to push open the door but felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Wait-"

On the other side of the door, Hyllus watched this new monster "acquaintance" crawl from its spot on the ceiling, move to the wall and then quietly step down to the floor. The amazing thing was not how it was able to claw at the ceiling without making a sound but had been able to do so while carrying an arm full of food, some of which are in bags.

"You didn't have to bring all of that."

"I wasn't sure which of this was food." The monster mumbled and rolled the catch onto the ground. Even despite living in a jar of endless food for the past three days, the possibility of new food just reawakened a feeling of peckish-ness inside her. Whatever the small human wouldn't eat, she might try.

Hyllus inspected the pile of food. Half of which was not actually something he could eat. He pushed aside an ear of corn and the bundles of herbs and grabbed instead an orange. He turned to the scrolls he spread across the floor where the moonlight shone. "Here you go. We are here." He crouched down and placed a finger on the city of Thebes.

Hel tore her eyes off the strange fruit in his hands, stopping herself from asking him about it and instead stared at the map. On the drawing were what she understood as Runes. Her eyes widened. "You understand runes?"

"Runes?" Hel tapped on the Greek label.

"Oh, everyone learns that. Didn't you?" Hyllus cocked his head to the side.

"Of course I have!" Hel argued back defensively, the air around her rapidly chilling., "just not when I was small." She spat out a little too quickly for Hyllus to even accept. He wasn't going to push it, he just wanted the monster that he now figured out was obviously lost, would leave him be.

Hyllus tugged at the blanket on his bed and wrapped it around his shoulders, shielding himself from the sudden cold. "Ok, sure, I believe you… Now that I gave you information, can you go now?"

Hel squinted her eyes at the child. The audacity of this kid was really starting to grow on her. "Oh no no no, I don't think so. I got you all of this food, and it is definitely not worth that little bit of information."

"But half of that couldn't even eat half of it." Hyllus huffed feeling this was beyond unfair. "I only took the orange."

"You have any idea how much this stuff is worth? And you;re just not gonna eat it? You didn't eat the rest of that…" Hel circled her finger to the orange peels on the ground. One thing that always set her off was the complete waste of food, or well anything actually. No matter the condition of things thrown into the overworld wells, everything and everyone had a use and a purpose.

"It's an orange. Those are the peels. You don't eat that, its gross."

"You owe me at least two more. Where's Jotunheim?" She hissed, her voice raised.

"What? Ok fine, and then can I go to bed and not be eaten?"

"I don't make compacts but yes, okay I'll be on my way if you tell me where is Jotunheim. You know.. where- Jotuns live." Hyllus looked at her with a blank look. He never even heard of the word before.

"Is that what you are?"

Hel frowned behind her smiling mask. This did not bode well for her. How did a human not even know of her kind. Maybe this one was far too young. Worse yet, if she gave him any more information, he just might tattle on her. To whom? She didn't care. It takes one person to keep a secret. "I'm Me, that's all you need to know."

"I'm Hyllus." The young boy decided to introduce himself. It just seemed like the polite thing to do. Kid logic. It cannot be reasoned with.

"I did not need that information from you." Hel grumbled.

"So what's your name?"

"I'm not giving you that."

"But I gave you mine." He protested, his voice raising while simultaneously masking the sound of a door slowly creaking open.

"A dumb move really." Hel crossed her arms over her chest. This was getting her nowhere. She stood a better chance taking the map from the kid and figuring out things herself.

Hyllus' eyes widened as he saw the monster basically roll up his school map and place it into the pocket of the strange garment it wore. "Hey, that's mine! We had a deal! I didn't-"

"You didn't hold up to your end so why should-"

The Jotunn stood up to her height and turned around to see the door to the room open and standing in it, fuming was her latest, annoying enemy to be introduced to her life.

"Aw crappe."

"Hodor! What are you doing here!?" Hercules bellowed, throwing himself at the being, knocking it into the wall and as far from his kid as he could get. Meg darted in between them and swept Hyllus from the floor and into her arms. She needed to get him out of there as quickly as possible. He had no hope in taking down the god but the hope was to subdue it long enough to get the attention of the Norse deities or even his father.

Hel felt her back slam into the solid stone of Herc's villa. When presented with a choice of fighting an enemy that was difficult but still possible to take down on uncertain and familiar ground and slinking away to finish the job later, Hel always chose the laziest option.

"Get off me!" Hel stomped her foot, creating a small thin layer of ice underneath them and pushed back. With sandals on his feet, there was no traction for him to cling into. Even if his grip was strong, his balance could not be maintained. The hero jerked, releasing the hold on the fiend just so he could catch his fall and that was all Hel needed to slip from his grasp, clamoring to the window. The wooden slats were reduced to splinters as she threw herself through the window.

Hercules chased after her, but she slipped through his fingers, "Get back here- Pegasus!" He called out.

Hel landed on the ground with a stumble and fumbled her way down the hill, over the stone walls, and past the flying horse that circled around to chase after her. A couple of missteps before she could get the lay of the ground that was soft, not hard and covered with thick patches of what she rationalized as very long moss. There was a word for it but she wasted no time searching for it. She had to take care of a problem and that problem was a.. Flying horse?

No matter, a blast of cold air and sleet from her hands not only slowed the equine but also sent it reeling away, trying to protect its fragile wings all the while almost tossing its rider off its back. Before Herc could right himself, the being he thought was Hodor had managed to escape towards the city of Thebes.

Hel was going to keep running. She was not the fastest but she had momentum and stamina. As long as she kept going, she could keep going until she collapsed.

* * *

Hey sorry for the long wait! I had a couple of shows to submit for and so that took a majority of my focus, but things should have settled down for now. I can't wait to write the next scene and share a little more about the Norse underworld that I created. There's nothing I like to do more than creating a very real and interesting world to throw characters into. And thank you so much for your continued interest, reviews and support, it really makes me happy to write especially when I have often told myself that I am not much of a writer. It really makes a difference and I will continue to better myself and make better stories.


	8. Meanwhile at the Hall of Doom?

Time seemed to whiz by, for Hodor partly because of the lack of sun and separation of night and day, and partly because everyone seemed to have their own way of telling time. The elves still had some connection to nature and could feel the ebb and flow of water through and streams that eventually traced their way into the underworld. The dwarves like to carry their own time tracking devices that were mostly set to some underground geysers that were closer to the warmer lands of muspelheim. Even so, the dwarves often disagreed on which geyser was more reliable. Everyone had their favorite. Some liked Ol' Reliable, that went off every hour and a half, and others liked the geyser Young Speedy which went off every half hour on the dot. Things only got more complicated when several towns near the muspelheim border began to adopt their own geysers and argue over whose was more reliable as a kind of local pride. The undead, especially the recently deceased, still insisted on there being night and day, but instead everything was just one very, very long night. And of course the monsters that lived there just didn't bother at all.

However, Hodor was excellent at keeping track of everything. Everything was organized and catalogued in his mind. In fact he was pretty confident that three days had already come and went. Hardly anything escaped the shadowy twin of Balder's steel trap of a mind. Well, except the ability to navigate down the desolate and messy pigsty of Eljudnir without tripping over one of the many steins left about, or the torn draperies and tapestries.

This palace used to be one of his most favorite places to visit as a small child, which had to be somewhere about 400 years ago, give or take. He stopped keeping track of his age when he realized that his mother was not going to let neither him nor his brother ever truly grow up. That was the year he learned that the golden apples were what kept the Aesir young. When he tagged along to visit his uncle Vili, he could actually hear and feel things better and play with his cousin just like any other kid. Here in the dark, he could stretch his powers of shadows out and feel around his surroundings. He could actually be free here and fit in, not like the world he was born to above.

He continued to pace the halls until he reached the courtyard, stopping only when he felt a large obstruction before him. Hodor wiggled his thin grey-violet fingers, sending forth the shadows that were only parted by the surrounding glowing lichen that grew like weeds. He could feel the features of a face although missing some features such as a nose. This he could recognize as the severed statue head of his uncle. His fingernails dug into the wood of his cane as anger grew in him.

How dare she?

The shadows writhed around him, picking up nearby debris and throwing them around the place.

"The nerve this lowlife gluttonously idiotic corpse breathed frost giant had to sully this hall and –"

"Sir? I don't mean to interrupt your vengeful ranting-"

Hodor turned on his heel, the shadows fumbling the rubble and sending it flying before settling back to the rightful place. The monster, a small kobold ducked and curled onto the ground as part of a nose flew over his head.

"I assume you are here to inform me that the capture of the giantess Modgudr has gone according to plan?" He asked, straightening his back, and loosened his grip on the staff.

"Well no sir um…" The kobold uncurled from its spot on the ground and slowly stood up.

"You let her get away?"

"No…"

An eyebrow rose above the blind god's pair of round black glasses.

"She did not get away but you did not capture and imprison her? I am a little confused." His voice was filled with ice. He approached the kobold that was now shrinking before him and leaned towards the creature, held up by his staff. This only made Hodor appear more threatening. "You and your crew were given everything you needed to get the job done, and yet you still fail to capture her but she didn't get away?"

"Well.. You see.. We- Um.. Can't find her?"

Hodor's own pointed teeth almost down as he hissed "How do you lose a river giantess?"

"Well she was-" Before the Kobold could wring his fingers into stumps, they were both interrupted by the sound of something thumping across the floor. It almost sounded like a drum. That is because it was a drum. Heavy emphasis on the word was. Because it was rotting and barely skeletal foot that dragged across the floor. Attached to the foot was a draugr, much better garbed than most. His armor was decorated with gold, gems and intricate scenes of animals hunting other animals that nearly matched the crown he wore on his head.

"We searched everywhere- Damn this mess-" The former king attempted to kick and shake the drum off his foot and only gained a mixed success in also losing his decaying foot halfway across the room.

Hodor restrained his eyes from twitching under his sunglasses. Just what he needed, more kinks in his flawless, multi faceted and carefully thought out plan. He remained in cold silence, letting the former king, Nidud talk.

"I have sent the men you assigned me to search the armory, the gates, vaults, the towers and even under the beds and rugs. Not a single sword or shield could be found anywhere."

Nidud waited for a response from the young god. Hodor had promised him a better afterlife in exchange for his assistance with taking down the terror of the underworld. Things weren't supposed to be this way, the king thought, he ought to be up there in asgard duking it out with other warriors and living it up as well as a dead guy could live it up.

Hodor broke the silence after running a few quick calculations, "Have you checked the study for any clues?" Judging by the utter wreck the palace had been left in, he doubted Hel was much of a 'studying' kind of person but he knew his uncle was. There had to be some hidden clues in there.

Nidud silently shook his head and then felt a touch of embarrassment at realizing what he did. "No, we did not. I shall send

"Excellent. I will meet you there later on, I still have a few things left to do."

Nidud bowed to Hodor and then rose up to head back to his crew, barked out to the waiting undead, "Alright, you heard him, we are going to search the study, but don't you dare break or tear anything apart. Anything that looks like a clue, I want it brought to me!"

Hodor turned towards the cowering kobold, black shadows lifting the monster into the air. You wouldn't think that shadows can crush things, but that's because shadows for most of the time, are often behaving themselves. Count yourself lucky that they do. The shadows enveloped the kobold's body leaving only its head poking out. The shadows slowly squeezed the creature while Hodor hissed at the kobold, "Now, I will overlook this minor setback but only if you get your entire team and hunt down Modgudr and chain her up with those magic chains. It's very important that you do so, because we need that ship of hers to be dismantled before Hel gets back here. I'm sure you understand how important that is right?"

The kobold nodded, squeezing its eyes shut and trying to breathe. "Yes. I do! If Hel is gone, everything goes back to the olds way-" The kobold spat out quickly, trying to rehearse the promises it heard over and over again.

"Whiiiiich" Hodor led the kobold.

"Which means we can get more food."

"Riiight! I'm so glad you get it now! Now go find her!" Hodor's shadows dropped the kobold onto the ground allowing it to scramble away.

Hodor straightened the dark violet cloak with a thick color of fur around him and adjusted the glasses back onto his nose. He couldn't allow himself to look too disheveled, even if it seemed like everything wasn't going as it should. He worked for months on this plan and even had several smaller plans running. The purposes of those smaller plans were entirely there to convince both his brother and his nemesis that he was too incompetent at pulling something like this off. A good ruler was calm. A good ruler had a plan for everything. And a good ruler knew how to show power over others, or that is what he believed.

Now that he was properly cool as ice and ready, he pulled the shadows to form a swirling portal in front of him to step through. One moment he was in the desecrated courtyard of Eljudnir and the next he was in a rather cluttered, windowless office. The walls were carved crevices into iron like wood and the desk was stacked high with leaflets of papers and coarse fur littered all over it. The only door into the office swung open and entered a bi-pedal, and rather large squirrel. The squirrel, known by all as Ratatoskr, did not see Hodor standing in the shadowed corner of the room as he called back to the rest of his workers, "And I want that in three days! Three old reliable days! You hear me?" The squirrel shrugged his long snow covered coat off of him and took a seat into his chair. His whiskers twitched as he searched his desk. Where was it? He knew he hid it somewhere around here! Ratatoskr pushed aside several stacks of papers onto the floor and even searched his top drawers.

"The acorn is on the shelf." Hodor said.

"Ah thanks!" Ratatoskr scrambled up the wall to grab the acorn from the shelf, stuffed it into his cheek and made his way back down to his cheek.

"auf-anke! Iahbn hookn fwarwar thouf-" He spat the acorn out onto his hands and then thoughts finally caught up with the rodent jumped to his feet, nearly falling out of his chair, and worse, almost dropping his acorn.

"Oh! You're here! Hodor! Good to see you, good to hear from you, I was just going to get into contact with you-"

"Save it." Hodor held his hand out. "The story."

"Just what I wanted to discuss!" Ratatoskr smiled and made his voice honeyed and sweet, "You see-"

"Did you run it by the heralds?"

"I- I can't do it! Sorry!"

"What!?" Hodor's fingernails dug into his staff.

"Yeah, I'm sorry but it's just not truthful and no one is going to believe it." Ratatoskr sat back down and popped the acorn cap off with his large teeth.

"You mean as believable as the story 'My grandma was a wolf this entire time?" or lets review the story about how doppelgangers are an asgardian ploy to sow chaos and destruction! Let's try that!" The young god used shadows to lift a nearby bunch of folded papers

Ratatoskr sat back in his chair staring at the paper that instead read Vedrfolnir, still balding? Sources from below say yes! The squirrel carefully pushed the papers to the side, "Look kid, I'm sorry but your story doesn't have any truth to it. Good stories, even the bogus ones need a teensy weensy bit of truth to them for anyone to take them seriously, and to be honest, other sources say that Ivaldi escaped without a scratch- Although…" Ratatoskr stroked his furry chin and glanced up to the ceiling. "And the "hero of the deep"-" He made air quotation marks with claws, "- sure aint dead like you said she was."

The paper dropped from the grasp of Hodor's shadow. "What!?" He had a hard time keeping his jaw shut. The ceiling should have came down on her, and the other human- There was no way she could have gotten out of that. Even if she wasn't crushed, he was certain that the activities of the raid would have gotten the attention of his family and that would have been the end of it!

"Yeah, that's right, I saw her on my way down catching the Pede towards Kohlstadt." Ratatoskr took Hodor's silence as submission. The rodent sat back, interlocking his claws in front of him, smiling with smug satisfaction. "Sorry kid, better luck next time with your next coup."

The squirrel's words broke Hodor out of his thoughts and launched him into a near rage. "This isn't over. I held up my end of the deal, and you will run the story or your little adventures to the surface, with your little pass ends here. All I have to do is let the elves and dwarves know just who's been fueling the conflicts between them this entire time."

Ratatoskr sat up in his chair and bared his teeth, ears pinned back. "You wouldn't! As soon as you tell them, they would never support you! You wouldn't be able to set foot in here without being under attack ever again!"

"You're right." Hodor's lips parted into a toothy grin. "But I won't have to be stuck down here to live with it. You will. So you're going to run the story," He leaned over the rodent with his hands on Ratatoskr's desk, " and you will run what ever story I need you to run from this point on. Because like it or not, I will bring peace and order to this realm, and you will be working for me, and I can make the rest of your life very comfortable or very, very miserable. I hope its not that tough of a choice to make. Do I make myself clear?"

Ratatoskr wrinkled his button nose and leaned back, trying to keep his cool but even he knew a teenage god with pent up anger issues could be unpredictable and very dangerous in close quarters. "Crystal."

"I'm glad we could come to an understanding." Hodor pulled away and created another portal of whirling shadows to walk back through leaving the squirrel in an empty and darkened room. When Hodor exited the portal, he was in his uncles throne room. The once tall throne created of black ice and crystal had now been cracked in half, some of it laying scattered across the floor. He sat down, being dwarfed by the size of the chair and rested his chin in his hand. Everything should have worked and had worked up until this point. He planned months in advance, learning Seidr magic and witchcraft in secret, the likes of which would allow him to alter the perceptions and visions of the future of those he targeted, allowing him to give Runatntha, the elf priestess that Hel often planned overworld heists with, false months he made relations with the unhappy undead who still longed for a chance at a better afterlife ruled by gods than the total anarchy that was the underworld. For months he made promises to the monsters that formerly worked for his uncle, that things will go back to the old ways. He even worked with the dwarven bureaucracy, the likes of which were nearly impossible to navigate. After dealing with it for two weeks, which is far longer than any sane or reasonable person would ever attempt, he gave up. And then promptly sought some other avenues to work with the dwarves.

Some would say his dealings were shady, but he is a god of shadows and darkness so of course they were shady. Dealing with the use and acquisition of soulstones were the epitome of shady in the underworld. Despite all of this, he still ran into problems. His frustration only grew. He drummed his fingers on the armrest of the throne and asked himself what he was doing wrong? His fingers felt the armrest that had deep gouges put into it, the kind of gouges that an axe would leave. The cold anger rose up in his chest again, his fingers digging into the groove created into the throne.

His concentration broke when he heard a shuffle into the room. The lack of breathing and rattling of old armor, signaled to him that it was one of the draugr under his employment. "Yes?" He asked, not even turning his head towards the sound.

The gravelly voice spoke up. "Your highness, I am sorry to tell you that we searched the study room and we did not find anything." Nidud noticed the slow and steady rise of the young god's shoulders, "However one of the men stumbled into a bookcase and we found something."

Hodor picked his head up and pointed it at Nidud's direction. "Show me."

In the once pristine and orderly study room the group of undead stepped aside to show Hodor the large whole made through the bookcase. He used the shadows around his feet to push aside the loose rolls of rotten parchments as he made his way inside. Nidud followed him into the dark with only his glowing blue eyes to light the way.

Inside Nidud could see some structure hidden in this smaller room. It looked like a multilevel ma diorama of the underworld but the lowest levels, were ones he did not quite recognize. "What is this?"

"This is the entirety of Helheim." Hodor ran his fingers over the low levels of the map that were coated in a bioluminescent moss that lit up as soon as it was disturbed. Nidud could see that towards the far edges of the diorama began to slope downwards, bending at odd angles. The further down it went, the more bizarre the landscape got. Hodor could feel the difference and informed the recently dead king, "I think this is the furthest."

"I've heard of that." Nidud squinted his eyes at the edges.

"Have you been?" Hodor wore a small smirk.

"No. I've heard that it's not very stable there." He watched the young god trace his fingers to a structure near the edge. The structure seemed arch like, almost looking like the standing stones on the surface. "I hear it's dangerous over there. Have you?"

"I normally don't get the time to spend much time that far away from home. You don't actually believe the rumors do you?"

Nidud studied Hodor's odd smile, looking for some kind of sign. "I just heard terrible things come from there. If it's anything like the monsters here, then I don;t see a reason to be too concerned." His glowing eyes went back to the odd structures on the map. "What are those?"

"I think those are where the weapons we are looking for have been hidden." Hodor said with a smile and turned back towards the exit. Finally something was going right.

After three straight days, give or take, Tyr could not walk any further. So when Ganglat finally berated him into getting a little further towards what he could only assume was some twisted version of civilization, he was overjoyed to find a tavern of sorts. The god miraculously had enough strength to pick himself up and run towards the tavern but only got as far as his brain would let him.

Something was wrong here. The first thing was, there shouldn't be a tavern in this location. Furthermore, there shouldn't be patrons coming and going to the tavern, let alone the businesses surrounding the tavern and absolutely there should not ever be a sign, that he just past that said GUTWEG. Tyre blinked hard and rubbed one eye after the other.

"Is this some kind of underground mirage or hallucination?"

"Only if you ate the wrong stuff." Gangalti said, huffing after finally catching up with him. She looked up at her compatriot and then at his staring at his surroundings. "Hey, Ganglati! Can you focus? We can chill once we get on the Pede!" Her patience was wearing thin. It was bad enough that they couldn;t take their normal routes back home since 'Ganglati' was not able to shrink back down to being a shadow. Just how long was this supposed to take? She heard of doppelgangers being able to hold their forms for years until the subject of their focus dying off, but none to be able to hold the form of a god as long as this.

"Has it always been like this?" Tyr asked, his head turning to take in the sites. The town was situated in a vast karst system with a large underground river moving through the center of it. Judging by the plethora or roots this town was a lot closer to the surface than most underground cities, but not by much. A thick but pourous mass of peat seperated Gutweg from the surface world, but still allowed huge amounts of water to flow into the small city. This left only the undead and beings such as Merrows and undines who were much more acclimated to wet environments to really populate the city. Even then, it seemed to but at a cost. As Tyr could tell , much of the buildings, created from rotting wood from the roots, and stone were slowly slumping over. Even some of the beings were covered in thick mats of moss and fungus.

"Uh.. For the past twenty years? Yeah?" Ganglati squinted her eyes at Tyr some more. Her hand rubbed the side of her face with exhaustion. She needed to feed and usually her boss was the provider, but that wasn't going to happen right now. After losing contact, she had no idea what Hel was up to or if she even escaped from being caught. She could only hope that they would meet up back at home.

"Okay fine, we'll check in for a bit and I'll get something to eat and then we can get back on the road."

Tyr frowned down to Ganglat, "But what about me eating?"

Ganglat tugged at her horse like ears, "For the last time, you are already eating, Ganglati!"

"But it doesn't feel like it."

"That's you acclimating to- Just stop being Tyr for one second for me!" She yelled, clenching her hands into tiny fists.

Tyr rolled his eyes and sighed, "Ooookay. I'll try again!" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and tried. He really tried. Really clenched his hand, squeezed his eyes and grunted tried. He even mumbled to himself, "Stop being Tyr, stop being, Tyr, stop being Tyr." He tried to visualize himself growing small- What was he supposed to look like again? He tried to become a little more like Ganglat. He worked all of his will and being into trying to stop being Tyr, but no matter what, deep down inside he was Tyr.

Ganglat stood there watching 'Ganglati' try to stop being Tyr for several minutes. She took a deep breath and sighed, "Alright, it isn't working, so how about we try this another time." She rubbed the bridge between her nose and eyes. This was going to be a constant source of headaches for her, she was certain of it. "You go in and eat while I try to find a place to stay and maybe get some tickets for a ferry." Ganglat waved Tyr off and trotted off. He nodded and headed inside, leaving Ganglat precious minutes, alone. Any time spent away from him was time well spent. She turned away and headed towards the inn, pushing past the crowd of monsters, merrows, and soggy undead who were gathering around an elevated stage. She had no time for listening to the news, or whatever garbage passed for it these days. However the shouting of the herald, a glowing white spirit of a man, could not be easily ignored. Poltergeists were renown for being noisy, and once they got attention, it only amplified.

He yelled, "BREAKING NEWS! IVALDI NARROWLY AVOIDED AN ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT BY ELVES! WAS THE HERO OF THE DEPTHS INVOLVED!? WITNESSES PEG THEM AT THE SCENE OF SAID ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT, BUT NO SIGN OF THEM HAS BEEN SEEN! HAVE THEY GONE MISSING? MORE NEWS AT THE ELEVENTH OL' RELIABLE!"

Ganglat stopped in her tracks, for this was something she could not easily ignored. "Oh no."

Hey sorry for the slow update, I've taken on a second job so my time has been taken up by that for quite a bit. I also went on a little mini vacation and I was thinking of creating a tumblr at least for the art work of this fiction. Sometimes I have little one off scenes that I don;t see working their way into my story and I just want to be able to make them. When I have it up and running, I'll be sure to share it with anyone interested in it.

This chapter has a lot of world building in it, I really want to get across that the world that Hel lives in is very different and has some aspects that build into hers, basically give other characters like Herc something to explore and experience some new things but also ask questions of what counts as being a hero and what kind of effects having a huge effect on being a hero in day to day life would have on on a culture, especially a culture where many of these people 'failed.'

Xitan22 Thank you so much! I'm glad that I can make people laugh at the situation.

Angel Don't worry about it! I tend to switch point of views, I think it has a lot to do with when I run table top games for my friends and I have to switch POV for different characters. And thank you so much for your encouragement and kind words, I was very scared of writing action scenes because a lot of times they can really bog a story down if not done right. I can't wait to have Hel wreak all sorts of accidental havok.

* * *

AN: Vili and Ve, are brothers of Odin. There really isn't much in the myths about them, but there seems to be a proto-germanic origin for them. The name Odin can be traced to Wodin or Wodinaz which could be translated to Inspiration, Vili into Wiljo meaning cognition, and Ve into Wiha meaning Numen. So I decided to make it Mind, Soul, and Body (life). The three are said to have created humans from trees, imparting again, mind, body, and soul into them. In my fiction, Vili, was the god of Soul.

Modgudr, or Modgud, is the giantess, that acts similar to Charon, except instead of rowing a boat, she guides you across a bridge. I made a few changes, in that the bridge that she guides across does not yet exist.

Kobolds are little underground races that resemble small children but can take the form of animals, and sometimes even candles. Funny enough the belief in them might have actually originated from Greece, well at least, the mischievous house elf kind anyways.

Nidud – Old evil king, that in all honesty, I don;t think he is that much of an antagonist as opposed to the Hero of the story, Volund who literally killed his sons, made goblets from their skulls, jewels from their eyes, and broach from their teeth that he then sent to Nidud, his wife and daughter. Volund also seduced his daughter trying to use a love Philter, fathered a son and then ditched them all.

Ratatoskr- is a bit of a messenger between the serpent Nidhogr that chews at the roots of the world and the eagle at the top of the world tree, Vedrfolnir. Only he twists the messages into insults between the two of them. In my story, I'm making him a bit of a sensationalist reporter that goes up to the surface, gathers information, and twists the stories, and delivers them to the underground populace.

Poltergeist- Literally means noisy ghost.


	9. Riddles Suck End of Story

Deep within the forest near Thebes bordering the river Ismenus, Hel was sprawled out beneath a large oak tree, laying on her back and unconscious after running the entire night. Technically speaking she had been away for three plus days. Maybe five. Maybe nine? Who was keeping track? She never kept track of anything. Instead she had a laser-like focus that pushed everything to the furthest reaches of exhaustion and disaster. Here, the need for sleep finally caught up with her.

The stream next to the oak tree rippled, as a small pale green head poked out. The naiad Melia rarely expected any beings to come this deep into the forest, aside from the sphinx that liked to hound her down with more riddles. Honestly, couldn't her neighbor just be like all the other monsters and terrorize and eat the mortal humans instead of bothering her by forcing her to help brainstorm the next riddle to drive mortals insane before eating them?

Melia eyed this very strange, and very tall being dressed in foreign heavy clothing that completely obscured its form, save for the long nails poking from its bandaged hands. The Naiad could not tell if this being was even still alive. From the looks of it, it did not seem to even breathe. She flicked her wrist, sending a small wave of water at the unconscious person and then very quickly ducked her head back into the water. She waited for a response but nothing happened. She poked her head back out, wondering if somehow they were dead; another victim courtesy of her annoying neighbor. She creept out to inspect the body, and came to the slow realization that whoever, or whatever, this thing was, it might not have been human at all. Her eyes fell onto the mask that rested on Hel's face and curiosity began to get the better of her.

Hel continued to dream despite this.

She had been here before… back when she was small. She was small again. The realization that she was dreaming had not yet occurred to her otherwise she would have forced herself awake. Instead, she stared at her child toes with confusion. One foot was blue, and the other black, but that was normal for her. It was the stream that she stood in that drew confusion. Because the water flowed red in reverse, over the pebbles and stones, and over the hill. Her eyes followed the path of the water and over the massive trees that reached until the sky. The sky was dark and writhing with snakelike tendrils that were lit by a very distant warm light.

"Mom?" She asked, feeling a familiar sense of dread build up in her chest. A dread she could not act on, but was unwillingly pulled through it. She had a feeling she knew where this was going but had no way to escape it, nor fight it.

The water was important. The sky was important. But why was it?

A voice broke the uneasy silence, "Ymirena!" Hel turned her head towards the direction.

It was her mother: tall, navy skinned thin, yet thinner, much thinner since the past few months. She came dashing through the thick snowy woods. "Oh, thank the runes!" Angraboda sighed quickly, forcing a smile.

Hel watched as her mother knelt down in front of her and chided, "Ymirena, where are your boots?"

"Sorry mom, I just wanted to play, and-" She felt scared, like she knew where this was going but once again couldn't do anything about it. She was forced to watch herself act out this scene.

Angraboda pushed her daughter's white messy hair out of her eyes, "Honey, remember we are playing the hiding game? We're going to find another hiding spot. We don't want to lose the game right? Don't worry about the shoes." Something in her mother's face clued Hel in that her mother was terrified, but hid it under the same mask her father did. Masks made of games, jokes, and promises.

"Mom, I-" She couldn't get the words out of her mouth as her mom tugged on her hand, dragging her forwards. Hel, well, Ymirena turned her head back towards the red river and ominous sky as she was dragged further away from it. "Mom- We got to-" She felt her mother's grasp loosen. She turned around to watch her mother's body fall forwards into the thick snow.

"Mom?" She asked.

No response.

Ymirena crept forwards, clutching her mother's hand so tight, her claws dug in. Her eyes followed the dent in the snow that her mother's head created. The edges of the indentation were stained. She didn't bother to even register the color of the stain. She just needed to tug her mom's arm and beg her, "Mom, c'mon, we're going to find another hiding place. We don't wanna get caught. I wanna win!" Her voice grew more urgent with each plead, "I promise I won't sneak out anymore, just-" She gave a final tug and fell back, as the arm came loose from the socket. She screamed as she continued to fall backwards into a dark abyss as black fluid from her mother's arm filled the sky, the water and the ground, but now also her lungs forcing her to choke as she still tried to scream.

She was falling and screaming into the void for what seemed forever.

Hel screamed, and screamed, and screamed into the waking world while flailing to get up, her claws digging into the ground and roots of the oak tree. A black line very slowly snaked its way from the wounds created in the roots all the way to the tops of its branches. Even the naiad Melia, screamed, and leapt back into her river. Screaming turned into gasping as Hel struggled to get a hold of reality, but her conscious mind could not keep up with it, and she struggled to get a hold of it, as well as get a hold of this whole being upright thing. The slippery rocks on the bank of the spring and the bright light searing her eyes did not help at all.

The terror, or demon, or hero, depending on who and where you asked, fell unceremoniously face first into the spring getting her lungs full of fresh clean water. She sputtered, coughed and hacked the water out as she crawled her way back to the shore. Somewhere in the spit up of water, a small minnow flopped out. A small giggle popped out over her shoulder. Hel sat up and pushed her mask pack into place after it almost slipping, and whipped her head around. She gave out a short yet stern, "Hoi!" To announce her presence and maybe alert whoever or whatever it was that giggled at her.

She waited for a response, standing perfectly still and even slowing her breath down, straining her ears to hear anything. She was alone. Hel squinted through the mask to take in her surroundings. There was a lot of light, well a lot for her anyways. And there was a lot of color. Autumn was setting in for Greece. Although on average, Greece rarely got too cold save for very late in the year; and even then, typically only inland and in mountainous areas or to the far north. Here, in Thebes, the center of Greece, the cold had not quite set in yet, but the trees were on their way to getting ready for the long slumber until the arrival of Spring.

Hel had no way of knowing any of this. For her, she came from a land of greys, blues, and cold blackness, and now it was if she was tossed into an all new overworld, larger than your average 22 inch screen now in technicolor, all for the price of being completely out of her element. The leaves were growing into shades of oranges, golds, reds and rich browns. Even the yellow-green grass did not look even the least bit depressing, and she could not for the life of her remember what it was called or if it had always been that shade. She reached out one bandaged hand to feel through the long blades, forgetting about why she was here, or what had put her on edge in the first place. Her claws stopped short of a small bunch of closely packed chrysanthemums. She withdrew her hand and stared at the many-petaled plant in silence until her brain caught up with her.

"What the fukke?" She ripped several buds from the stem and brought them up to her face to make sure it wasn't some trick of the overabundance of light. Hel immediately began to pull the flowers apart petal by petal. "I thought these things were supposed to be like, a different shape! Like maybe five or six wiggly things!" Everything she heard or remembered about the surface was a lie, beginning at the number and shape of wiggly things on flowers.

The strange shouting got Melia's attention once again, luring her from the safe depths of her spring just to poke her eyes out just a smidge. She watched Hel completely lose her marbles over some simple fall blooms. This only raised further questions, and she knew she really ought to be hiding from whatever this thing was; but to be quite honest with herself, it was a little bit amusing.

Well, it was amusing all the way up until Hel turn her head from making confetti out of the heavily scented, and full of pollen, chrysanthemums and unleashed a series of sneezes. The first sneeze caught her off guard. The second, third and fourth sneeze created a sense of dead deep within her heart that more were to come. The fifth and sixth sneeze filled Hel's nose and eyes with mucus and tears, and the seventh and eighth sneeze sent all of that gunk back into her sinuses. With every sneeze, cold air shot out from slots in Hel's mask, freezing the surface of the spring in a near instant with sheets of ice with some strange black oil like substance coating the top. The nymph leapt from the water with a high pitched squeal. The kind of squeal you make after someone has shoved an ice cube down the back of your shirt. That exact squeal.

Hel whipped her head around to the sound, already leaping to her feet and bearing her claws, expecting to have to get into another scrap with a human but instead she only met a very small, algae green skinned being with fins for ears. It was absolutely not human in any other way aside from a similarity in shape. Hel advanced onto the Naiad before she could escape.

Melia rubbed her shoulders to generate heat before the early hibernation set in. The moment she sensed the air around her get drastically colder and ominous, she opened her eyes upwards to the grinning mask that loomed inches from her head. "Eep."

"Ya creeping on me?"

"Creeping?" Melia laughed nervously, bending her back as far as it could go. "I- I don't creep." She inched backwards, her hands wringing together as she noticed Hel's red eyes. Coupled with the ability of being able to freeze the surface of a river with a sneeze, any hopes of the tall being before her being even remotely human were straight out the window.

"Really? 'Cause I think watching people is a bit creepy... anywaaaaaays," Hel dragged on and reached back into her still sopping wet pocket. "I'm glad someone is here, because I need to ask ya real quick-" This was the moment Melia needed to turn tail and run further into the woods. Hel on the other hand was preoccupied with the sudden realization that the map of Greece was soaked and quickly deteriorating.

"Oh no no no no no!" She desperately poured it onto the ground, spreading it open and watching in utter horror as the markings, lakes, mountains, and cities were all blurring into puddles of ink and splotches. "Just one-" She looked over her shoulder to the very rapidly disappearing Naiad. Her shoulders slumped as she breathed cold air through her nose. "Great." She stood up and reluctantly gave chase. "Hoi! Get back here! I just need to ask ya something!"

Hel never really liked cardio. It was not her strong suit. Sure she could run faster than most people, and once she got going she could really pick up speed, but that was mostly due to skating. She groaned, rolled her eyes and then gave chase, weaving in and out of the low hanging branches, dodging trees and jumping over tangled roots.

Melia at first really thought she had a chance to get away as she looked over her shoulder watching the distance between her and the being chasing after her, grew wider and wider for about a minute, until she watched the forest behind her begin to freeze and wither away.

Suddenly there was fur, feathers, and there was the distinct feeling of being pounced. Wait, she thought, I'm on the ground. The Sphinx sat on top of her and spilled out, "Okay, I have some better ones that will really stump people this time! Let me run these by you-" Melia struggled to push the sphynx off of her, but the beast just weighed too much for the naiad.

"Not now- I don't got time for this!-"

"Flat as a lead, round as a ring, I have two eyes, but cannot see-"

Melia slapped a partially liquefied hand across the Sphynx's cheek, "I don't have time for your stupid riddles right now! There's a thing! Running after me!"

The air chilled quickly around them, announcing Hel was incoming. Hel came to a sliding stop on a thick sheet of ice under her feet. The hood over her head having a few twigs sticking through it was now pushed back revealing her very short, very messy white hair that flopped over just enough to hide the bald half of her head. It was filled with rapidly decaying leaves.

The pair could only stare up at Hel with combined confusion and terror. Well actually, Melia did the majority of work in the terror department. The sphinx, however, disregarded the gold air as a sign of oncoming winter. She had already decided this human would be the first to run her new riddles by, and inevitably make a snack out of.

"First of all-" Hel held out a single finger upwards and then pointed it at Melia, "That was rude- Second of all, you really need to get your creeping game up to at least-" Hel would be cut off as the Sphinx attempted to leap at her. Hel, (being used to people either running away in terror, or running towards her to put an end to her, or anything she did), reacted instinctively by twisting her body and allowing the Sphinx to glide right by her. And before Melia could run off to escape, she felt her leg being frozen to the ground.

"Alright, my very short amount of patience is really getting tried here-"

"What runs but has no legs!" The Sphinx belted, grabbing at the first riddle she could think of but when she got no response, she explained, "Answer my riddle, and you'll go free."

"What?"

"I said, if you answer my riddle, I'll let you free, and if you-"

Hel turned towards Melia, squinted eyes behind her mask hinting at incredulousness.

"It's kinda her thing. I don't know why." Melia helplessly shrugged.

Hel turned back to the sphynx and shook her head "Nah."

"What?"

"I said, Nah. I don't think I'll be doing that."

"But you got to! If you don't, I get to eat you!"

"Pfffffft! Riddles are dumb though. Why not just eat someone? It would be a lot easier and no one has to listen to a dumb riddle before they die."

"Riddles are not dumb!" The sphinx stamped her paw and then looked to Melia who threw her head back and sighed with the weight of something that needed to be said being lifted.

"Uh, yeah, they are. Like, they have many answers to every question, and who ever asks it just gets to say you're wrong to feel smug."

"No! That's not how riddles work! They have one answer!"

"Then why do so many answers fit then?" Hel crossed her arms over her shoulder, even bouncing her head from side to side.

"They do not have many answers, those are just wrong answers made to fit-"

"Guys! Guys!" Melia yelled, still trying to get her leg free, "How about this, you two ask each other riddles, and you have to make an answer fit, and the winner is whoever stumps the other in making an answer fit and gets to eat the other, or whatever. Just please, stop arguing and leave me be."

"And the winner also gets to establish, forever that riddles are dumb, and should never be used for anything ever again!" Hel declared throwing her arms into the air.

The Sphinx glared at her neighbor, but switched her glance towards the stranger dressed in rags, obviously some kind of madman. A sense of pride over took her, "Very well, I'll go first." She placed a paw onto her chest and began, feeling confident that the idiot before her would not even have heard the classic, "What has four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?"

"My buddy Karl."

"What?"

"Well one morning he won like two extra feet from gambling, and then he lost them around noon in another bet, but towards the end of the evening he managed to win one back."

Melia and Sphinx stared at Hel with confused horror.

"The guy needs to stop while he still has a head."

Don't you mean while he's still ahead?" Melia cautiously asked.

Hel's shoulders sank as she shook her head. "His gambling addiction is tearing his afterlife apart."

"What runs without legs?" The sphinx tested, feeling uneasy as context clues began to sink in for her. This being, not only knew dead people but even spoke of the afterlife. The ones that acted as such, were the denizens of the underworld. She gulped.

"Still Karl." Hel crossed her arms over her chest.

"You can't be serious." Melia gasped.

"I am. The guy owed people money and that time he had already bet his lower half. I've never seen anyone run across snow on their hands so fast to be honest."

The Sphinx ground her teeth and asked, tentatively, "And what if I was to ask what moves quickly on eight, but only on one leg at a time?"

"Is it still Karl?" Melia asked, forgetting entirely about her leg being frozen to the ground.

Hel tilted her masked head to the side and nodded, "Still Karl, After he finally gets about four more arms or legs and achieves that dream of just cartwheeling everywhere to get around." Hel fell silent for a moment and snapped her fingers, unable to resist cracking the joke, "Karl-wheeling."

She noticed the completly awkward silence that surrounded them. "He's a pretty weird dude."

Out of desperation, the sphinx spat out, "The more there is, the less you see! What is it?"

"Spider infestation."

"Do not elaborate! Absolutely no one needs an elaboration on that! No more riddles!" Melia yelled at the two of them in terror.

"Yeah it's my turn anyways, and then I get to eat you."

"What!?" The sphinx yelled, hopping from her perch on a nearby bolder, fur standing on end. "That's not what I agreed on!"

"Yeah, well if you're not willing to go under the rules you make, why even have those rules in the first place?!" Hel placed her hands on her hips and stamped a foot, causing more ice to form underneath her and several plants, trees, and stones to instantly begin to deteriorate. Melia felt something hit her gut, making her reel in pain as if some part of her was torn out. The sphinx however, leapt away in time and cowered with her tail tucked beneath her.

"What is red, flies, has fur, gets heavy at night, goes on forever and is hotter than fire?" Hel snarled.

Melia and sphynx sat there, staring at Hel in silence. A strained silence passed through them for a couple of minutes while Hel waited, tapping her foot impatiently.

"Well?"

The sphinx, fearing that she might actually get eaten by whatever this thing was, was now going to eat her. "I'm still working on it." She had to think and move, her paws inched her further back.

"I got time to wait."

"And wait you shall! But I will be back and I will have your answer, and prove to you that riddles are not dumb!" The feline honestly felt boldness rise within her, that she could just trick Hel and run away.

"Okay, I'll be here when you figure that out then." Hel tilted her head and squinted, letting the feline creature retreat. Hel waved her off as she retreated further into the forest and maybe to never be seen again. "Byyyyyyeeeee."

Hel turned back towards Melia who not only gave up on trying to free her leg but was staring up at Hel. This strange masked person had just saved her what felt like an eternity of enduring tons of incredibly stupid pestering for riddles and advice that was never taken anyways.

"So…" Melia began, "Just curious, What is the answer anyways?"

"Oh, well, it's a wufenstamacthur."

"A what?"

"You know, a wufenstamacthur."

"I'm scared to ask what exactly that is."

With only a beat, Hel explained, "Oh, it's just something I made up."

"That… might technically be against the rules." Melia said cautiously, "Not like I'm complaining, She was very annoying and I did not care for her eating people near my brother's river-"

Hel crouched down before the Naiad, placing her smiling wooden mask right up to Melia's face and laughed, "Rules are for idiots." Although Hel held a few rules, the fact is, she held others to those rules, and never herself. Or she liked to believe. If people wanted to follow rules, that was on them, and they were idiots.

Melia gulped, now wondering if she had traded her annoying and mostly harmful monster for a completely harmful one. Her eyes darted to her lge with the ice beginning to wane.

"So, I'm a little lost, and I would like to go home, I will let you go and not kill you, because I'm nice like that. Okay?" Melia flinched and let out a small scream as Hel slammed a clenched fist over the ice, shattering it.

"So, I'd rather not have to chase you down again, or make too much of a commotion, can you just please give me directions to Jotunheim?"

Melia weighed her options but the more she thought about it, this being, possibly a cthonic being so far had not been completely hostile to her. At least yet. The best way to get rid of it, was to send it on its merry way, but there was just one problem.

"I'm sorry but I don't know what that is. I never heard of Jotunheim."

"What?"

* * *

That very morning, Meg and Herc woke a very sleepy and groggy Hyllus up for school, but even his sleepiness and grogginess was no match for the two parents were instead opted to stay up all night figuring out just what they were going to do. Herc had decided that he was going to drop by the temple of Zeus to alert him that his bridge buddy's' son had managed to run away all the way to Greece, and afterwards, round up Phil and couple of his fellow heros to help track down "Hodor" and bring him to justice. Or to very concerned and miffed parents that will hopefully ground him for more than a hundred years or two.

Meg on the other hand, had it covered on her side. She was determined to get Hyllus on the right track for school, because as bright and smart as he was, there was just one problem.

"Mooooom," Hyllus groaned in between yawns, "I wanna help dad stop the bad guy. I think I can help now."

"Well you can help your dad after you complete hero training, and that can happen right after you get proper education." Meg grumbled while hurriedly setting Hyllus' breakfast onto the table and packing his lunch for the day.

"But it's, it's…" Hyllus thought while stuffing his face and then settled on a thought, "It;s my destiny!" He said with his mouth full of food.

"Hyllus, don't eat with your mouth full, and also," Meg took a rag and brushed Hyllus' cheek with it and left it on the table. "Destiny doesn't happen until you're eighteen. It's a cosmic rule. Destiny doesn't begin until your eighteenth birthday."

"What do you know about destiny mom? You didn't even know there was an actual monster under my bed. And it's dads turn to take me to school today!"

Meg groaned, her shoulders slumping but looked up as she heard her husband walked into the kitchen from outside. "You haven't left yet?"

Her walked past her and grabbed the jar of plenty from the counter, "Forgot something." He leaned down and gave her a kiss, "See you later tonight, I love you."

"Love you too."

He stopped before heading back out the door and pointed towards his sin, "Hero rule number ninety twenty-three."

Hyllus rolled his eyes and groaned, "Always respect your elders…"

"And?"

"A hero always respects and listens to their mother."

"That's right." Herc headed back outside.

Once the kid finished breakfast, he was hurried out the door and onto the chariot by his mother. To be quite honest, Hyllus was rather disappointed about the whole affair. He had gained a bit of a reputation with the school kids as the kid with the coolest dad in the entire world and now this felt like such a downgrade. He hugged his mom as she drove the chariot down past the villa and towards the city, and they got about half way there until Hyllus gasped.

"What is it." Meg asked, irritation hanging in her voice. He had to have forgotten something. Kids always forget things on their way out the door and to the school.

"Don't be mad but… I forgot my lunch."

Meg closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "Hyllus, you're killing mr right now."

"I'm sorry."

"It's alright we'll just…" Her eyes settled on a couple of merchants making their way down the main road from Thebes to Athens. Often times they stopped by the forests surrounding the river Ismenus, if only to refresh their jugs of water. There was bound to be someone with "Here we go, we can buy something here." Hyllus made a face but it quickly disappeared as his eyes settled on one cart carrying little pies, and sweet fruit.

Meg quickly ordered some fruit, and a pita pocket from a merchant that was only heading to the next small town. Everything was going smoothly until she overheard two of the merchants teenage sons come bursting through the woods pelting each other with snowballs.

"Hey now! I sent you two to get water." The father called back, he looked puzzled at the snowballs.

The two immediately stopped their snowball fight, one of them holding up an amphora of sloshing water. "Yeah, yeah we got it."

Meg stared at them, unaware that Hylus was already scooping up what remained of the snow from the grass and packed them into snowballs. It was cold the night before, very cold when they were visited by the so called god, Hodor, and the sheet of ice "he" left behind took her most of the very early morning to mop up. "C'mon Hyllus, we don't want to be late!" She did her best to keep down the alarm that was building up in her chest. She had to get a hold of her husband soon and tell him what was found. As soon as Hyllus climbed on board the chariot again, she raced them through the town, almost running over a couple of pedestrians in the process. She cringed and yelled back, "Sorry!"

When they arrived to Hyllus' school, the bell was already being rung to signal the students to head to their classrooms, but there was a considerably large crowd of kids still waiting by the student drop off. Meg raised an eyebrow and looked down to her son who sheepishly ducked his head down and stepped off the chariot.

"Oh it's just Hyllus and his mom." One kid spoke out, and a wave of groans followed it as the kids dispersed towards their class rooms.

"Really Hyllus? This is why you wanted your dad to drop you off?" Meg asked, shooting a look down at her son, who ran off waving to her, "Can't talk now mom! Class! Bye I love you!"

Meg sighed, letting it go, she had better things to worry about. As she steered the chariot away from the school, Hyllus reached into his back for the makeshift snowball. If he didn't have his dad to show off, he could at least tell the kids about the monster that was in his room the night before, and prove it with a snowball. However, what remained of the snowball had quickly melted in his bag. Hyllus frowned and looked up around him. Now what was he going to do? Well he knew where he could get more of the snow, but skipping school was wrong. The kid did a quick calculation in his head, it would not be skipping if he came back, and being late wasn't necessarily a wrong thing to do, but just an unhappy consequence. He waited for the teachers to not look in his direction and slunk off.

* * *

Hel wandered out of the forest towards the main road after a never ending stream of questions towards the Melia, that really made the naid question if she had traded one annoying evil for an even greater, more annoying evil, Hel wandered out of the forest. She had some clarification of the events around her, but she was still very confused and lost.

She was not in Germany, or Norway, or Sweden, or Denmark, and not even Finland! She was someplace else in Midgard, someplace called Greece which was really far out of the way, and even more frighteningly, no one had ever heard of Jotunheim. She had no point of reference. The only good news was that the gods she knew of were not here either. In a way she really did not have to lay too low, but it was still a better idea to have at least some caution.

She squinted at the road, letting her eyes follow it south where the river Ismenus flowed from the mountains, and then she looked north where the city Thebes was not too far from walking distance. Just past it would be a large lake, or so she was informed. Her nose wrinkled under her mask. She hated hated this feeling, a feeling without a name or shape or even direction. It was just an uneasy, unhappy feeling with a bit of anger mixed in. There was nothing she could do about this odd feeling except fumble with itm which only made the problem worse.

She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes, trying to imagine pushing this feeling someplace else out of reach. Her fists clenched and unclenched, and she thought to herself,

"Which Direction should I go?"

Sometimes it came down to a gut decision for her.

Her ears picked up the distant noise of the city, and that was all she needed to make a decision. But her mark, an accidental disease stemming from the sneezes she made at the bank of the Ismenus, would travel with the merchants down south towards Athens.

* * *

Hey there, things are getting a little hairy with my two jobs and I am working on submitting some work to three different shows coming up. And also Borderlands 3 is releasing very, very soon. So yeah, I might not update as frequently, but I will do my best. Thank you for your patience.

Also recommended music to listen to for this chapter. Back in School by Mother Mother.


	10. As a goody two shoes, lying is hard

Hercules hoped to have gotten to his father before the morning meeting began, which was usually somewhere after the crack of dawn, but sometimes helping your wife corral a kid in the morning to get ready for school took way more time than you expect. It always does.

Despite the urgency of his call, Hermes was sent in his stead, "Hey Herc, babe, sorry the the big Z is a little busy right now. We're in the meeting making sure everyone is on page for this years harvest, and winter. If you like, I'll write him a memo."

"Well, Hermes, I think this might be an emergency. Hodor is here. I don't know how he got here but he followed me home."

"Well, Herc babe, I thought by now you'd used to dealing with fans?" Hermes quipped, sliding his glasses down his nose, all the while smiling at his own joke.

"I would find that funny if I didn't find him threatening my son in his room last night." Herc ran his hands through his red hair, a calming motion. The thought of his family being harmed perhaps affected him more than he let himself into believing.

"So do you want me to find someone to assist in retrieving him, or-" Hermes led, trying to rush this thing along.

"I just want Father to know his bridge friend's son is here and intends to wreak havoc in Greece. I'm going to try and corral him, and send him home. I felt that if Odin and Frigga are alerted to their Son's mischief by a friend, it would be much less embarrassing for them."

"Are you speaking from experience there?"

"I hope not." Herc groaned with his shoulders slumped. Hyllus was very young, but was already beginning to test his parents. Herc remembered the headaches he had put phil through as a teen, and it was only time till Hyllus turned into his teens.

"Don't worry Herc Babe, after the meeting is done, I'll head up drop it on Zeus and check in on Odin and Frigga for ya, how does that sound?"

"That sounds perfect. In the meantime, I'm going to round up some help to corral him until his parents come to get him." Herc aid as he was leaving, his hand unconsciously reaching for his shoulder. It was still sore from the bite. By now he knew it wasn't from a Drauger but he believed it was from Hodor. Just what kind of bites could gods deliver and just how long was this infection going to last?

* * *

She tried to keep to the shadows as much as she could in the city, not out of fear of being recognized or hassled, seeing as people were quick to avoid her, but out of still being unable to cope with the bright sunlight. She had forgotten how warm the surface could get. It was nowhere near the temperatures of underground cities that lined the Muspel edge*, but it was still very draining on her.

[I need a better transition than this]

Hel instinctively followed where most people gathered, which led her towards the agora. The scene was not unlike the many cities that she allowed the undead, elves, monsters and dwarves to build, but what did surprise her were the things offered for sale. Her eyes almost bugged out at the different kinds of foods, mostly fruits and vegetables offered. Her stomach decided now would be the best time to remind her that it existed. Hel felt excitement brew inside her. This would be her chance to try many different kinds of foods she only heard about. Balder often came down to visit her and always brought food on him to supplement the bugs, mushrooms and corpses that made up her diet but it was often limited to what he could carry.

She ducked into the nearest stall with an overhang, bending her neck down to avoid knocking her head. The shopkeeper was busy taking payment from a woman, glanced towards Hel and then back to his customer. He did a double take, dropping his coins and knocking over a basket of apples.

"Aaah! C-Can I h-help you?" He asked forcing a smile. The person before him did not seem human at all. He wondered for a moment if this was some kind of monster or another half human creature that he would have to worry about trampling his wares. The woman he was waiting on scrambled away from the stall.

"Um… Just looking at the moment." Hel brushed the shopkeeper off, her eyes focusing not on the apples but on the large bright orange gourd in front of her. She lifted it up and shook it. It seemed heavy, and the outside was waxy, not unlike corpse wax. Her nose wrinkled under the mask and turned to the shopkeeper who was trying to very quietly pack away his more valuable items and eventually sneak away. "You got any recommendations?"

"Uh Re-recommendations?" The human squeaked, straightening himself to pretend he was not up to anything.

"Yeah, you know, like to eat." Hel had a creeping feeling that she stood out a lot more than she that she thought about it, what was it that they used as currency up here again? She considered just taking what she wanted. It wasn't like anyone would be able to stop her, but she had no idea what the gods here were even like here. She safely assumed they were all a bunch of bastards. She crossed her arms over her chest and nodded, "Like, what do you like? You know if you could eat only one of these things and had to choose, which would it be?"

"I, uh, well.." The human began carefully. If this being was a monster, judging by the claws that stuck out of the bandages and the red eyes with cat like pupils poking from the mask, he felt this could be a ruse to try and get him to ambush him. "How about those pomegranates? Over there!" He pointed a shaking hand towards a basket that was overflowing with the fall fruit.

"Thewhat?" Hel glanced down beside her at the small red fruit.

"They're fresh, Tasty and the best!" the shopkeeper piped up, resuming to gather what he can while the monster was distracted. The moment Hel turned her back on him to grab the fruit, he was gone, leaving a trail of dust and bewildered shoppers and merchants behind him. All eyes snapped back to Hel.

She examined the fruit and dig into her pockets for payment. "And Bright Eyes tried to say things weren't so plentiful up here." She mumbled to herself. She pulled out a couple of forms of payment and placed the contents onto the empty stall table. A couple of wooden coins, small pointy reptilian tooh and a severed, dried human finger. She turned to leave, her thoughts returning to her friend Balder. How was he doing anyways? And how long would it take for him to notice she was gone?

She left the stall with her pomegranate, pushing through the small crowd that had gathered around the stall. Many eyes fell onto the human finger and that was all they needed to start a panic.

* * *

Even if Balder didn't know Hel had been shipped off to some exotic land to the south and that he was entirely responsible for it, he would have noticed Hel was missing in about three days, or nine days tops. That would however rely entirely on the fact that he would not typically be grounded, which unfortunately he was. He was sentenced to fifty years for going into and out of the underworld willy nilly, covering up that his brother was causing trouble, and that leading to an earthquake that practically took out an entire town. Frigga and Odin never had to place any physical or metaphysical restrictions on Balder when they grounded him. They simply relied on the fact that balder was just so well behaved and good, that he would follow along with whatever he was told. They were kind of right.

You see, the thing is, Balder knew he could just break the rules and go and check on her, however, he never broke the rules. Well, actually, he never broke rules that he couldn't reason himself into the breaking being for the greater good anyways. For instance, if a best friend needed protection, he would break a rule to do so. But, if his best friend was also a murderer Hel-bent on destroying his entire family out of revenge, and out of a strange sense of doing the ""right"" thing, then things get complicated. That's even leaving out that his entire family basically destroyed her entire family. The point is, Balder held himself to the greatest good, or he at least tried to and honestly the ethics of doing good and the "best good" in a crazy mixed up Norse world was really difficult for anyone, let alone a young teenage god, to navigate on his own.

Balder had been kept busy with his dilemma. So, due to being grounded, and unable to check on his outlaw friend, he would instead have to rely on any information gained from his brother, Hodor ... the moment he got kicked out of the underworld for attempting yet another underworld takeover. That should be any day now.

This however brings us to Balder's second problem. His brother had not returned. He was afraid his brother's plans were working out well. He had overheard his brother monologing, something he picked up from that one Goddess that went by the name Bridget.

Bridget had came from the south some twenty odd years ago and specialized in witchcraft. She claimed she knew a thing or two about underworld management, so it was no surprise that she wanted to join the competition that his father had introduced. The goal was to capture the demon that terrorized the underworld and continued to pillage the surface world, either alive or dead. Preferably dead. There were other competitors from other pantheons from the Finnish in the east to the Celts in the west. She had taken a bit of a shine to Hodor for his attention to detail and had temporarily taken him under her wing in order to win the competition. At first Balder worried she was just using his brother for his powers of darkness and shadows but he saw this was a huge confidence booster for his brother. He could not argue, but made sure his friend stayed safe from her captors.

When the competition ended and everyone turned up not only empty handed, but also utterly terrorized and defeated, Bridget just changed her name and went west with the Celts. She had left his brother in the dust. He worried about his brother giving up all hope and falling into another depression, but instead he only got more determined to defeat Hel and rule her underworld.

In the meantime, Balder was grounded to help Eir as she cared for and healed his pantheon, train with Tyr, who was still missing, pretend that Tyr was not missing, help Freyr restore the land under the festival and keep the rot from spreading, cover the fact it was supposed to be Hodor helping with that project, and also cover that Hodor was also not missing at all and was totally fine, and who's asking anyways?

It was a lot of work for him, especially considering he did not lie. The teenager instead operated on telling half truths, misled his friends and loved ones, and also distracted them. When ever he could. He had to take a few chapters out of his friend Hel's book just to keep his head above water. As Balder made another delivery of freshly picked herbs from Eir's garden. Balder reasoned with himself, that this at least made up for all the "technically wrong" things he was doing. That's what he told himself internally as he pushed into Eir's "pharmacy", which was just a cabinet in the back of her "operating room", which was just a very, very sturdy and large table in her pantry. State of the art, in healing and caring for the injured and sick, she told him. Also it didn't hurt to have a keg of beer at the ready for her patients, and her as well.

Eir had her back to him as she sorted through the linens and cloth for new fresh clean ones to lay back over the table. Balder said nothing as he made his way to the cabinet and began to bundle the herbs up, hoping she wouldn't notice his tardiness. Once he got into the swing of deception, things felt a little easier. Sure, he had to take on more jobs and it was getting harder and harder to not blab the truth all the while still not lying, and having to push down those icky feelings of guilt and wrong doing, but it was starting to get easier. He could do this forever!

It wasn't so hard. He thought to himself while and then the horror sank into him like bad cough syrup. He stared at the bundled herbs in his hands as if they could provide answers. They never did.

What if he had to do this forever? His eyes widened in horror and he bit his bottom lip. What if this was wrong? He gulped. What if his friend Hel ends up hurting people or getting caught, or if his brother ends up getting hurt? Or what if He gets caught and loses the trust and respect of his new friend Hercules? Balder's heart skipped a beat.

Balder was suddenly paralyzed with dread and shame. What was he going to do? His blue eyes darted from side to side as he weighed invisible options. He could come clean, but then he would be grounded for at least another hundred years, his brother would never be allowed outside of Asgard, their mother would be quite sure of that. Then his friend Hel, they have wanted to get rid of her from the moment she was born. Granted, she didn't exactly make things any easier on her by raging war against his family and the surface. He bit the inside of his cheek. He could try to put in a good word for her, maybe tell them that she wasn't so bad once they got to know her. Sure, she was a god killer, a usurper, a spawn of Loki destined to destroy the gods and the nine realms but she really wasn't all that bad. In fact she could be kind and funny, if maybe negligent and completely unaware of her powers, and maybe a little rough around the edges, and her morals were a little skewed, and she was horribly disorganized. He was really running out of positive traits wasn't he?

Balder closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to search deep within himself about what to do.

"Balder!"

"Aaugh!" The young god jumped and fumbled a jar that had found its way into his hands and nearly dropped it twice before it being caught by Eir.

"Woah, that was close." Eir said, placing the jar back onto the counter. "I've been trying to get your attention, what's up with you?" Her eyes fell onto the large bundle of herbs.

"Oh, just thinking, sorry, I honestly didn't hear you." Balder stammered. "Sorry, I was late, I was-"

"I don;t remember asking for belladonna…" Eir eyed the flowers.

"I picked them up from Freyr, I-"

'What were you doing with Freyr?"

Balder fell speechless, his jaw hanging open for a second as he looked for words. "Well I knew you were really short on some herbs from yesterday, and I thought I would pick up some more."

"Un huh." Eir crossed her arms over her chest. Balder had been acting funny lately. Well he was always a funny kid. Sweet but funny. Regardless of him being the odd duck of the Norse pantheon, with the pacifism and all that.

"Yeah, really. I just want to help! I'm really sorry about-"

"Covering for your brother?"

"Uh- Yes. I feel-" He looked down to his boots. "Really bad about that."

Eir studied the teen. Something was off. His story sounded plausible but one thing that was bothering her was how their Greek guest not only had ran into the so called demon of the underworld but survived it with only a bite. She could investigate the matter, but that was honestly above her pay grade, she only had to hope Balder opened up in his time of service to her.

"Balder, it seems like you really need to talk about it, you know, you can always schedule an appointment with me. Anything you say will be confidential."

The teen looked up to the physician and swallowed. Could he trust her? He took in a deep breath and then spotted Hermes fluttering next to Odin just past Eir's shoulder. He leaned to the side and nodded his head in Hermes direction. "No, I'm good Mrs Eir, but I think we have someone."

Eir followed Balder's eyes towards Hermes. "Oh, hello?" She recognized the god on his occasional visits and nearly mistook him for Hermod several times. "Is something wrong?" She had hoped the medicine she gave Hercules was strong enough to fight off the necrotic infection he received from the bite. Her eyes bounced between Hermes and the all father with worried confusion.

"Oh, hey, was just popping in the neighborhood, and thought I'd check in on some really fascinating rumors." Hermes trailed on, dipping his sunglasses down his sharp nose to look Balder in the eyes. Balder averted his eyes towards his feet, sucking in his lips. He felt everyone's eyes on him again, which honestly wasn;t all that unusual, but their stares made him feel a thousand times smaller than the tiniest dwarf.

"I see Balder has been helping you Eir?" Odin asked his pantheon's physician.

"Well, yes, he's been quite the help." She began, drawing her eyes from Balder towards Odin looking for answers. "Although sometimes late, he makes up for it." She turned to Hermes, "It seems really out of the way to be investigating some rumors."

"That is what I said," Odin said, his eye never leaving his son. "But you will find these rumors to be very, very interesting,"

"If I may," Hermes begann looking up to Odin who nodded towards him. "You know, it's really nutty, but I have a fairly reliable source that Hodor has been spotted in Greece, running around causing trouble." He placed his glasses back over his eyes, concealing the fact that he was watching Balder very carefully. "Which I'm sure cannot be true, since I know that Hodor is grounded and would be up here. Besides, I'm not even sure how he would find his way down to Greece anyways." Hermes leaned on his half truths. Sometimes by lying or concealing the truth, he could uncover more truth than if he asked honesty.

Eir wrinkled her brow at the messenger and then glanced to Odin looking for answers. "That would be very… Odd." She wondered briefly if that Hodor could actually teleport, but then it would be rather difficult for him if he didn;t quite know where he was going. Her eyes followed Odin;s singular eye to Balder who was very silent.

Balder concentrated on breathing. He glanced up to all the eyes on him. His heart was beating so loud that it drained out their voices. He could only make out the words that were mouthed to him, something about if he had seen Hodor.

"I...Uh.." The teen stammered. His mind racing. What could he do? If only he was clever enough to evade their questions! If only he didn't have such strict morals! But then again, what would the best good be? If he told the truth, then they would go after his friend, a fight will certainly break out and a lot of people, and even possibly gods, would die. In this case, he reasoned, telling the truth would actually be a very bad thing. "I… I ah…" His eyes darted around the room, landing on the plants that he grabbed from Freyr. What should he do? What would someone much more clever than him do? What would Hel do? "Yeah! I- uh, Mrs Eir, I grabbed those herbs from Freyr, cause, I thought you would need some more and-" He twisted his hands and looked away from her, his eyes going towards the window.

"Balder, I know, you already told me but what were you doing with Freyr in the first place?" Eir scratched her head. She knew Balder was a good kid, and it was not like him to hide things, much less tell a lie. In fact, it had come to be accepted within the entire Norse pantheon, that Balder could not lie.

Even Balder believed he could not lie. Until these very words spilled out of his mouth. "I was with Freyr, because I had to drag Hodor to him, so he wouldn;t be late. Which is why I am late. Hodor was lost in reading… A book."

"A book?" Odin asked dryly.

"Yes, he was trying to read a book on navigation, but it wasn't going so well for him, since, you know, the blindness.-"

"Navigation?" Hermes asked incredulously, his jaw dropped. He had never seen such an obvious and blatant lie before. "That's.. That's what you're going with?" He asked looking between the other two deities. Odin remained stoic, and quiet, while Eir stroked her chin and nodded,

"Ugh, that figures. When you tell Hodor, he can't do something, that kid just doubles down on trying to do it anyway." Eir sighed.

"Yeah! That's Hodor alright! The most hard headed brother I know!" Balder nodded along to Eir. "And that's why Freyr helped me out getting you some more herbs for your supply and also why I was late, and, obviously there is no way that Hodor would be in Greece, causing trouble. There's no way that could be him."

Balder could not believe his own lips. In fact he was not even sure how anyone else could. Lying left a taste in his mouth, and a sordid feeling in his gut. His gaze was focused on his father, who stared right through him in silence.

"Are, we sure , we want to believe that?" Hermes tested the other two adults.

"Well, we all know Balder cannot tell lies, seeing as he is the god of heroes, hope, and goodness." Odin began, not taking his eye off his son. "It would go against everything he stands for."

"Mhmm Hmm." Balder hummed in agreement, his lips sucking into his teeth again.

Hermes was beside himself. If the All Father of the Norse Pantheon wasn't going to question his son's obvious lies, then he had no choice but to go with it. "Well, okay, that settles it. Hodor isn't in Greece." Hermes picked right up to his smiling self, facing a squirming and paling Balder. "I'll just inform my contact that there must be some huge mistake after all. Thank you so much for your time. I'm sorry to be a bother to you, I'll let you get on. Bye!" With that, the messenger was gone, zipping back to Greece. He did not necessarily had to believe it. Balder being so at ease in his certainty that there was no way his twin could be in Greece did not go unnoticed. If it wasn't Hodor, then who was it?

Once the adults had decided to leave Balder alone with his bed of lies, the poor teen had to wonder very briefly if his mother ever thought to get his own heart to swear not to kill him. He was about ready to have a heart attack.

* * *

Hyllus was lost. He was certain he knew the direction back to the main gates from school, but as per usual, he was distracted on the ride there. Often times he pretended there was an invisible man running alongside the chariot, jumping over stalls and other chariots as they rode by. This of course meant that he never really paid too much attention to the path towards school. Strangely enough, the streets were empty. People had left leaving behind their belongings almost as if in a hurry. The city had never looked more alienating and foreign to him before. Hyllus brought his fists up to his chest as he looked around cautiously.

"Hello?" He called out tentatively. Only his echo answered back.

Fortunately he was able to recognize at least one of the buildings nearby. It was the temple of Bacchus. He had never really been inside the temple itself but distinctly recognized the large amphora sitting next to it, as well as some of the decorations and offerings that were going up in preparation for the upcoming harvest festival.

Now he thought to himself that he was certain that before passing by this temple, there was some sort of monument… As Hyllus turned his head, he felt a sudden chill, and from the corner of his eye, he spotted a shadow move towards the temple. He spun on his heels only to see nothing. "Hello?" He asked again.

The sound of metal clattering across the temple floor drew the very curious child closer towards the temple entrance. He peeked inside and gasped when his eyes landed on the familiar figure of monster that came from the jar. Was it Hodor? Was that what his father called it? He quickly ducked back behind the doorway. He peeked out just enough to spot ""Hodor"" cautiously walking towards the statue.

Hel had never in her life seen a statue that looked so life like before. She was willing to admit it caught her off guard, almost tricking her into believing a real god was standing before her. She stood there for what seemed like a minute, making out the details in the light created by the sconces and tripods. This god did not seem at all that intimidating to her, and possibly even a push over if it came to it. Her eyes fell onto the offerings of food and amphorae at the base of the statue.

Hel cautiously approached the statue, keeping her red eyes on it, in case it moved. The naturalistic rendering of figures, and things in the art here was a bit unnerving to her, compared to the art that the dark elves churned out. Simplified shapes, bold lines and gestures,all to capture emotion and action rather than accurate rendering of life.

The pomegranate she ate earlier, was not entirely an appetizing meal. The waxy exterior and many seeds made it a little far more frustrating to eat than she anticipated. The bunches of purple and green berries, looked strange to her but at the same time, familiar. It brought back memories of sensation, of picking small bunches of juniper and lingonberries in the dead of night. Her claws reached out to grab one of the grapes that to her, went unnoticed as it began to wither away. She only stopped when a voice rang out.

"Hey! What are you doing!? You can't do that!" Hyllos yelled and then gasped, covering his mouth.

Hel whipped her head around, claws bared, and body readying to spring into action, but the moment her eyes landed on the small human child who stood before her covering his mouth, her shoulders slumped. "Oh, it's you. What are you doing here? Can't you bother someone else?" She huffed at the child and then out of sheer defiance, she grabbed a fist full of the fruit and shoved it into her mouth.

"Hey that's not yours!" Hyllus yelled at Hel, his fists gripped tightly.

"I don't see anyone here eating it.." Hell retorted with her mouth full.

"That's him right there." The human child pointed towards the looming statue of Bacchus.

Hel slowly blinked behind her mask, at the rotund deity. "He won't miss it."

Hyllus' mouth hung open. He brought his clenched fists up to his chest and braced for divine judgment to be set onto the figure behind him. When it didn't, he relaxed his arms to his sides and frowned at the being that continued to grab food. He stood there, wide eyed. His world was shattered. Never in his life had he seen anyone with such a blatant disregard for both rules, and the will of the gods while at the same time, not coming off as entirely too mean or evil. Sure this monster broke into his room, scared him, broke a window and was stealing from the temple, but he had not ever seen the monster actually attack him. If he remembered correctly from the night before, the monster seemed to be lost.

"Aren't you supposed to be um…" Hyllus nervously asked, taking a couple steps forward on his toes. "Looking for that Yohunhan place?"

"It's jotunheim. Land of the Jotuns." Hel groaned as she rolled her eyes and head to the ceiling. The Jotun turned on her heels to slowly approach the small human child that timidly stepped away from her. She leaned over, her hands in her pockets relying entirely on using her height and appearance to scare away the child. "You know, us giant Jotun kind, that oppose the gods, bring terror and eat people? Ring any bells? "

Hyllus looked up at the toothy grinned mask that loomed over him with some confusion. "Um, No?" Nothing in his studies ever had any mention of any being known as jotuns. The closest thing that came to mind were titans, and this clearly was not a titan at all. A thought resurfaced in his mind, "Wait. I thought you would be gone by now. Are you lost?"

Hel's bad eye twitched under her mask. "What? No! I'm not lost! I'm just turned around."

Hyllus scrunched his face, "Not lost? Okay.. But you look lost. What happened to my map? If you're not using it can I have it back?"

"You map is useless." Hel huffed, pushing past Hyllus and back out to the square.

"It is not, and can I have it back?"

"No."

"But why not?" Hyllus complained following after the Jotun.

"Because it got wet and became even more useless than before." Hel threw her arms up into the air and then turned back around. "Why are you following me!?"

Hyllus stopped just out of arms reach of the jotun, clenching his arms up to his chest. "I- I uh," He searched for a reason other than pure curiosity. He noticed that there was not a single soul in sight of them. "I'm lost too and I don't know where everyone else is."

"Well go find someone else, and I am not lost."

Hyllus looked around and spoke up in the smallest voice he could muster, "But I can't find anyone else. Where is everybody?"

Hel brought her hand to rest on the forehead of her mask and growled. "I dunno, maybe hiding? Not really my problem! Now go bother someone else! Like your idiot parents that can't even die properly!" She turned back around to put some distance between her and the child before his aforementioned father came back for round three.

Hyllus was absolutely caught off guard by that comment. In fact he wasn't even sure what the jotun meant by that, but he knew he felt hurt by it. He searched for words to try and get the Jotun to stick around, at least guide him to the river. Or at least go back to school. "But, I don;t know where my parents are right now! And, and, and….." He looked down to his sandals. "I just wanted to get a snowball to share it, but now I'm lost and I'm scared and I really just want to go back home now."

He looked back up, blinking away the tears that began to gather in the corners of his eyes. In his blurry vision he could see the Jotun standing ahead of him with their shoulders drooped, and head rolled back in exasperation. They breathed in and exhaled in a long drawn out, "Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. Whatever. Follow me if you want to, I'll probably head out of this useless place anyways."

Hyllus jogged after her, yelling, "Okay thank you!"

"The first chance I get, I'm going to use you as a hostage."

"That's fair I guess."

Under her mask, Hel was seething, her cheeks were puffed out, and claws digging into her hands inside her pockets. She hated this. Being weak, being lost, being confused and hungry, and even worse, being in charge of anyone else. She was never sure why anyone continued to turn to her as if she could be of any help. It's not like she even knew how to actually help anyone. It was everything she hated about being in the underworlds. Well, that and the whole being imprisoned thing, but she did not have the time nor tools available to unpack that emotional baggage. So she stuffed that baggage somewhere else, far deep into the walk in closet of her mind, covered it in as much dirty laundry as she could and forgot about it. As you do.

Sure planning and running raids on the surface world seemed to help people looking to gain much needed supplies underground for a little while, but they always came back for more. The worst was dealing with the people who were upset at her for their failure to die in battle. She just wished everyone in underworlds could just make their own decisions and leave her alone to planning her escape. But now she was out, and people were already following after her asking for help she could not give.

"So any idea where they would be?""

"My mom would be at home or looking for my dad."

"Well I am not going back to your place so forget about that. Where was your dad heading?"

"Um…. I think he was looking for you, so I don't know."

"Oh well that's just fan-fukking-tastic."

* * *

*Muspel Edge. In nordic underworld, due to the lack of sun or anyone that frequents the surface to establish a cardinal direction, those that both live and unlive there, have established their own cardinal directions that also include the Z axis. Muspel is to the warm south where the underworld is warm, filled with lava and said to be ruled by a cranky fire giant with a penchant for making sly deals and blowing up on anyone that angers him.** It is generally agreed upon to avoid that place at all costs.

**Basically Hades. There seems to be enough confusion among the Nordic Underworld inhabitants. When everything is built by rumors, and exaggerated tales, strange things happen to facts. At least in Helheim, the stories of a tyrant titan that lived far to the south, and stories of a foul tempered fire breathing underworld god, got merged into one.

Brigit, or Brigid, may be linked to a Germanic triple goddess, basically a Hecate like figure. There isn;t much known about this goddess or her worship since a lot of sources only mention her off hand, but there certainly seems to be some wide spread archaeological evidence. Further more, it seems like she had a much bigger cult following in the Celtic isles, and even eventually becoming the Morrigan.

Freyr- God of fertility, vegetation, and plenty. Brother of Freya, and part of the Vanir Tribe.

Also, I'm so sorry that I haven't been able to update in a while. I'm not taking a Hiatus, just trying to play catch up with life right now. Even my friend that acts as my editor, hasn't been able to keep up due to some life altering events. I promise I will try to update more often but the chapters may end up being much shorter. I hope in this chapter I am laying better ground work for about who the ocs really are, and their motivations. I worry that Hel's personality seems all over the place, but keep in mind, she is practically a kid without much of a chance to really know who she is and what she believes in all the while having expectations that most full grown adults would cave under being thrown onto her. So in essence, she's a bit of a brat. Thank you so much!


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